BetterPhoto Instructor Insights

Photography Tips in the Rain

By Rob Sheppard

(c) Rob Sheppard

For a lot of the United States in winter, conditions are wet. In Southern California, this is our rainy season, but the season has been far wetter than it normally is. I was just in Costa Rica earlier this month, and I feel like I am back in the rainforest! The wet black-bellied hummingbird below is from Costa Rica (and it really does have a very black belly and chest).

(c) Rob Sheppard

A lot of photographers put their cameras away when it rains. That's not for me. Even when I lived in Minnesota and spent a lot of time outdoors throughout the whole year, I refused to let my camera hibernate. There are many opportunities for interesting photos when the weather is bad. Anyway, if I really want to photograph nature in all of its glory, I need to at least shoot a little bad weather nature. And I know I can get photos that other photographers don't have because they have put their cameras away.

The photo below is a rainy day in the chaparral of the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California.

(c) Rob Sheppard

But I understand the worry about damaging gear. When gear gets wet, it can fail. Here are some things I do to keep my camera gear dry:

1. Use an umbrella. I carry a small, black umbrella that folds up small enough to fit inside my camera bag. With my camera on a tripod, the umbrella keeps the camera and lens dry without fighting with (or even needing) a lot of special waterproof protection. Doing this is sometimes a bit awkward, but it does work, and a little practice makes the use of the umbrella much easier.

2. Use a shower cap. Whenever I travel and the hotel has shower caps in the bathroom, I keep them for my camera bag. They fit a camera and a moderate-sized lens very well. I brought some for my group in Costa Rica and our cameras often sported these handy accessories. Locals sometimes laughed at us, but our cameras were dry!

3. Bring along a pack towel. Go to an outdoor store such as REI, Sports Chalet, or Bass Pro Shops, and look for a small pack towel made of microfiber. These pack nicely in your camera bag and help dry gear as it gets wet.

4. Try waterproof protection from a commercially made brand, such as OpTech. OpTech makes an inexpensive, plastic cover for cameras and long lenses that is designed to fit and cover them well.

5. Bonus tip for winter photographers: Beware of another sort of wetness - condensation on your camera. Cold cameras brought into warm interiors (including cars) can act just like that cool glass of lemonade on the counter in warm, humid summer conditions. You can get water condensing both on and in your camera. It is the "in" that can be really bad because it can damage your camera. Avoid it by never bringing an exposed cold camera into those conditions. Put the camera into a zipped camera bag or into a closed plastic bag while it warms up.

NOTE: Outdoor Photographer columnist and author Rob Sheppard teaches many outstanding online photo courses at BetterPhoto.com, including Creating Storytelling Photos, Impact in Your Photographs: The Wow Factor and The Magic of F-stops: Choosing the Right Aperture.

Color Photography in Winter: Natural Browns

By Rob Sheppard

In much of the country in late fall and winter, nature is either brown or brown and white. This is a time of "rest" for many plants. The leaves are gone from deciduous trees, annuals are dead, perennials have stored new life in the ground.

Brown can be a deadly color for nature photographers. It can be challenging at times to capture in any way interesting. It tends to be dull.

But that is what we have, and I for one, don't want my camera to hibernate. Yes, I do live in Southern California now, and there are flowers in my native garden. But I am not going to just stay in my garden and wait for spring! While there are wonderful snowy scenes in the mountains nearby and throughout California, there are also a lot of brown areas, from parts of the chaparral to low areas near the mountains to the desert.

I know from experience that brown is a key part of a lot of landscapes from fall to winter. Minnesota landscapes can be really brown throughout most of the state until snow covers them, but even then, the snow doesn't always stay. When I lived there, I still went out and looked for interesting landscapes and details of nature, even if it was brown.

I believe that as nature photographers, we have a responsibility to show off nature in all conditions. We are the "eyes" on nature for so many people.

(c) Rob Sheppard

But brown does not have to be dull and boring. Once you start looking, you will discover rich tonalities in the browns, plus variations in color. They are there, but they do require an open mind to see them. Once you start looking for contrast and color, you will start to find it. This image was shot a little north of Bishop, California, looking east toward the White Mountains.

You do have to be careful of overexposing brown. Washed-out browns never look good. And it often helps to bring out some of the definition in the browns through the use of Clarity in Lightroom and Camera Raw, or Structure in Viveza 2. I also find it helpful to follow Ansel Adams's lead in darkening the edges of the image to give a more dimensional photo. Post-Crop Vignetting in Lightroom works well for that.

Edge darkening is also easy to do in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Make a big, circular selection around the outside of the photo, then invert it so that only the outside edge is selected (use Inverse in the Select menu).

Now add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer (yes, Brightness/Contrast - it works well for this purpose). You will automatically get a layer mask based on your selection - you don't have to know anything about layer masks to use this.

Move the Brightness slider to the left to darken the photo. There will be an ugly edge. Go to the Filter menu and choose Blur, then Gaussian blur. Use a big blur number until that ugly edge disappears.

Now adjust the Brightness slider until the photo looks good. Click the eye icon for the layer on and off to see the effect.

You may have to brighten the original photo some when you do this. Also, when you are done, you can keep the layer or flatten the photo and save it as a new version of your file. Flatten the image using the Layer menu.

Note: Outdoor Photographer editor at large Rob Sheppard teaches many excellent online photo courses at BetterPhoto.com, including Creating Storytelling Photos, Composition Boot Camp, and Impact in Your Photographs: The Wow Factor.

Get Creative with Wide-angle, HDR and Textures

By Deborah Sandidge

Wide-angle lenses work beautifully for many compositions, including this HDR image photographed in the "Parts Dept" of this vintage auto store.

(c) Deborah Sandidge

A Nikon 14-24mm lens takes in all the interesting features in the scene. HDR (High Dynamic Range technique) enhanced the details, color and exposure, down to the last lightbulb. It's like opening a present to see the result of images processed for HDR!

I also like to add textures to my images, such as the texture in the wide-angle HDR photo below. Texture adds depth and dimension, giving an image more character. One of my favorite textures was photographed in Charleston, SC - an aged cracked and peeling painted wall that has wonderful golden tones. You can experiment with blend modes and a texture layer. With the Move tool active, hold down the shift key and press the plus or minus key to scroll through the various blend modes and see the effect each has on your image.

Sounds like fun? Perfect! Join me and a great group of students from around the world in my BetterPhoto online photography courses: Photoshop - Enhancing Images & Creating Works of Art and Digital Infrared Photography. I hope to see you in class!

(c) Deborah Sandidge

How to Create a High Dynamic Range Image

By Deborah Sandidge

(c) Deborah Sandidge

High Dynamic Range imagery (HDR) allows the photographer to create exciting images that are not always possible with a single exposure. For example, if I exposed for the highlight areas, detail was lost in the shadows. Exposing for the shadows leaves the composition with a white sky as shown below. A graduated neutral density filter wouldn't help because of the angle of the building. HDR is an elegant solution for a tricky exposure.

One of the good things about HDR is you just basically need your camera, tripod, and processing software. There are several options for the HDR photographer as far as software goes, such as Photomatix, the new Nik HDR Efex Pro (which was used to make this image), Photoshop's HDR Pro, and several others. HDR enhances color, detail and exposure, creating a very dynamic image. Below are the exposures that went in to making the single image above.

The creative part of HDR is deciding how you want to artistically present the image, photorealist or more on the illustrative side. You get to be the artist! I went with an edgy, more defined look which suits the colorfully painted architecture.

(c) Deborah Sandidge

Editor Notes: Deb Sandidge teaches for BetterPhoto.com, which offers the biggest and oldest of the photography online schools. Check out Deb's courses: Photoshop - Enhancing Digital Images and Creating Works of Art and Digital Infrared Photography.