Inspiring ways to improve your photos
Inspiring ways to improve your photos
After a chilly night we arose to a frosty morning and assembled a quick breakfast in order to get up to the Iwikau Village car park in the Whakapapa Ski Area where we would meet our guide, Mike Fox. We had been instructed to bring lunch, wet weather gear, hats, sunscreen and plenty of water. We also brought our walking sticks and cameras.
When you mention New Zealand’s thermal regions, the first name to come to mind is Rotorua. Often described as ‘Sulphur City’ the area is dotted with thermal springs which contain boiling cauldrons of water, pungent gas and steam emissions and bubbling mud pools – as well as the occasional thrusting geyser.
Today’s plan was to visit two thermal areas and end the day camping on the shore of Lake Taupo, en route to the Tongariro National Park, which was the main focus of our trip. After starting our day with a swim in the Waikite thermal pool and packing the camper van, we headed directly for Wai-O-Tapu, which was only a couple of kilometres away. Our aim was to be on site for the ‘performance’ of the Lady Knox geyser, which erupts daily at 10.15 a.m.
Like many Australians, this year my partner and I have decided to holiday close to home and, having a long-standing interest in geology, we thought a trip to New Zealand’s thermal regions would provide us with some great picture-taking opportunities and, at the same time, provide a chance to explore some radically unfamiliar landforms.
We investigate why digital camera lenses have more depth of field than 35mm lenses – and how it affects your photography.
I had recently been challenged by shooting some high-contrast scenes with my digital camera (with mixed results) and this prompted me to research the subject of Dynamic Range as it relates to both film and digital imaging generally. I also have a flatbed scanner and a film scanner, so the subject has been lurking in the back of my mind for some time.
For the first half of the 20th century, photographers had to gauge exposures without a light meter. It was common at the time for film packets to have a set of exposure guidelines printed inside them to help photographers obtain correctly exposed pictures under a range of typical lighting conditions. Many photographers still use these guidelines, especially for tricky lighting conditions, when difficult-to-meter subjects like large areas of snow or wedding groups containing white dresses and black suits can produce incorrect exposure readings.
Have you ever noticed small darkish patches in areas of blue sky in landscape photos taken with your digital SLR? They’re probably produced by dust on the image sensor. In most cases, it’s not on the sensor itself, but on the filter or protective glass that covers it. The result is the same; it shows up on digital photos. Not all of them, though; in most cases, dust is only visible in shots with large areas that have minimal detail when the shot was taken with a small lens aperture.
The normal distribution of tones in a digital image produces a smooth histogram with every one of the 256 tonal levels occupied. In a correctly exposed image, the peak of the graph is in the centre and the graph tapers down at each end to the 0 and 255 points.
Different places and different times of day can affect the colours you capture in a digital photograph and all image sensors are designed to reproduce a wide range of hues and tones accurately. From the harsh desert sunshine to the misty rainforest; from sunrise to dusk; indoors and out; your camera should be able to produce pictures that capture the colours and atmosphere of the place and time of day.
Latest news, reviews, tips, and new ways to improve and inspire your photography.
Landscape Photography 2nd Edn
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