Outdoor Photography How To

Bill Hatcher was near the park entrance when a wildfire forced the closing of Tioga Pass road into Yosemite National Park last summer. “The fire was threatening to cross the road into Yosemite,” he says, “and helicopters and tankers were being sent out on kind of a bombing run to cut the fire off.”

If you’re in the market for an ultra-wide lens you’ve probably noticed they’re available in two basic configurations; fisheye and rectilinear. So what’s he difference, and which type best suits your needs?

One big challenge when photographing birds or other types of wildlife involves dealing with subjects that appear in front of busy backgrounds—a situation that tends to happen more often than not. There are ways to remedy this problem in post-processing, but wouldn't you rather get things right in the camera? This tutorial from Backcountry Gallery explains how it's done.

Converging vertical lines can spoil all sorts of photos, whether you're shooting in the city or out in the field. The problem occurs when it's necessary to point the camera upward to include the top of tall objects in the frame.

Distortion is often a challenge with outdoor photos, like landscape images with tall trees, or city scenes with soaring buildings and other vertical lines. Fortunately, these distractions are very easy to fix during the editing process, as you’ll see in the quick tutorial below.

It’s not impossible to capture compelling landscape photos on flat, foggy days, but more often these conditions result in boring, uninspiring images. If that’s what you get on your next outing in the field, we encourage you not to trash the photos with the intent on returning on a better day.

Let’s face it: We all make exposure mistakes on occasion that prevent a good shot from being a great one. Fortunately, there are a few simple shooting and editing tips that will help you get the best out of your images.