One of my photos is in the finalist selection for Outdoor Photographer’s Colors of Nature contest… please vote for me if you can do so with a clear conscience, and you don’t have one of your own in there, of course, :biggrin:
Thanks!
I recently completed a job for SCW Art Consulting in Durango, CO. They commissioned five large prints of photographs I made in various places around Colorado. The prints will be installed in a new hospital being built in Lakewood, CO. My thanks to Sarah Giuliano and the team at SCW!
Here are a couple of selects from my recent trip to New York City. I am processing the photos now and will post the full collection on my web site soon!
In preparation for the new year I’m releasing several calendars of my photographs; the first one is available now from Cafe Press. A couple more calendars are in the works and will be available for purchase during the first week of December.
A question from a reader of my Lightroom 2 book:
“Dear Mr. Coalson,
I just recently purchased your book, Lightroom2. I notice that many of your beautifully printed images are done with small aperture settings.
For years, I have shot many landscapes at f22. This seem to go against the grain of conventional wisdom. Many serious photographers refer to a sweet spot in the lens, about f8 or f11.
I shoot with Minolta professional glass; all of my lenses are 2.8s. now I’m using them digitally with a Sony A700 body.
What is your opinion?
As I develop a work flow, I find myself unsure of how much to stop down my exposures on landscapes. I want to keep as much as possible in any given scene in sharp focus.”
My reply:
“Thank you very much for your email, and for purchasing my Lightroom book.
I will be happy to answer your questions re: apertures.
What we’re dealing with here is depth-of-field (DOF). DOF refers to the range of “acceptable” sharpness (or maybe better said “perceptible” sharpness) within the photo. The lens settings for focal length and aperture determine the DOF, based on the distance at which the lens is focused. Read more…
I’ve been seeing a lot of tips floating around about photographing fireworks. Many make it seem difficult and mysterious. Time to get back to basics.
… where “exposure” is a combination of aperture and shutter speed.
With fireworks, the action is relatively fast, and the light is bright. For this reason, in most cases, you don’t want super-long exposures! Keeping your shutter open for 30 seconds will leave you disappointed. (The exception would be if you have opened the shutter onto a black sky and are waiting for the fireworks to go… in this case, a black sky will register little or no light onto the exposure, so having the shutter open is fine while intermittent flares are going off.)
But when the bombs really start glaring, you need faster exposures to capture them. Otherwise, you will end up with a blurry mess of overexposed shots.
With that in mind, here are my tips for shooting fireworks, using a digital SLR: Read more…
I just returned from a week-long trip to Oregon coast and northern California redwoods. I traveled with my good buddies Jim Talaric , Monte Trumbull and Jim Barber… and we all had a great time.
This was my first time shooting in the area; even after doing a lot of online research, I wasn’t really sure what to expect.
As is the case with most nature/landscape photography, weather is everything in coastal areas like this. Fog, clouds, sunrise/sunset times, chance of rain etc. will totally dictate what shots you can get, and where. Plan to get wet, and plan to keep shooting.
As usual I traveled with my laptop, using a temporary working Lightroom catalog for the trip. (More about this in my Lightroom book …) Everything worked great.
I came home with nearly 1,000 captures; from which (mostly during the trip) I have edited down to around 50 "keepers".
Here’s one shot, from the first night in Oregon. This is sunset at Ecola State Park, looking south toward Indian beach. A really beautiful place. We had varying light, people coming and going, and a tide that was not perfectly suited to our work. However I came away with a couple fo shots I’m happy with; this is one of them.
This image was processed [minimally] entirely in Lightroom.
Comments and critiques always appreciated!
Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, California
Redwood National Park, California
Redwood National Park, California
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