Wildlife Photography How To

Lightroom boasts a wide array of transformational features for adjusting exposure, perfecting colors, and enhancing other attributes of unimpressive photos. Today's quick tutorial from photographer James Feaver explains why the oft-ignored Point Color tool is "incredibly" powerful, and how you can begin using now regardless of your post-processing experience.

Earlier this week we brought you an unconventional beginners guide to minimalist black-and-white photography, demonstrating how restraint and simplicity can deliver landscape images with greater impact. We're following up on that lesson today with an interesting video that applies these same principles to photographing birds and other wildlife subjects in the field.

You'd think by now I would have learned. I mean, when I began taking pictures seriously, my cellphone had a rotary dial, ISO was spelled ASA and image files were paper folders where sleeves of negatives were stored.

Have you ever spoiled an otherwise great shot by clipping highlights on a sunlit wildlife subject? Maybe a bright white bird is blown out and totally devoid of detail, or perhaps it's just the wings that are grossly overexposed.

I confess. I let my love affair with Cyanocitta Cristata become all-consuming, and placed my life in jeopardy. I cannot go out on my patio without facing extreme danger. I've spent a small fortune on arachis hypogaea (street name "goobers") just to feed her habit, and have been forced to become a prisoner in my own home because the Corvidae Family have a price on my head. 

Have you ever noticed that your best outdoor images feel alive and connected, while others lack impact and you're not quite sure why?  According to Canadian pro Adam Gibbs, the game-changing solution may be as simple as composing with "flow."

Every new photographer is forced to confront a bewildering array of unfamiliar terminology from camera settings, features like exposure control, and physical buttons, to odd-sounding technical methods and post-processing nomenclature. So pull up a chair and let's get you up to speed.