Outdoor Photography How To

If you’re going to be a serious landscape photographer, you need a serious tripod but what’s mystifying is how little thought people put into picking one out. That’s exactly why professional photographer Tom Mackie of Landscape Photography iQ made the below video gear guide.

Perched on a cliff in Pescadero, California, about 50 miles south of San Francisco, sits the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, one of the tallest lighthouses in the US. For Shutterbug reader Erick Castellón, who has been looking to improve his astrophotography skills this year, the lighthouse also represented a tall challenge.

While this image by 18-year-old photographer Dylan Meffan might look beautifully tranquil, capturing it was a bit of a nerve-wracking experience for him. The reason? The dog.

One of the most exhilarating things about being an outdoor photographer is capturing nature’s beauty and its power. And for some outdoor photographers, there’s no greater thrill than photographing one of Mother Nature’s most hair-raising spectacles: a lightning storm.

The first thing most photographers learn is that a camera’s light meter is calibrated to deliver correct exposures of “average” subjects with a tone of middle gray. But what about bright scenes like a snowfield, or close-ups of dark subjects like a black cat? That’s where exposure (EV) compensation comes into play.

Here’s a quick photo primer from an accomplished pro, with three simple tips that will help you shoot better photographs. So stop what you’re doing, invest three minutes in watching this tutorial, and up your photo game now!

One reason why landscape photography is so popular, is the solitude that’s often found in the backcountry. In this tutorial, British pro Thomas Heaton explains how to capture beautiful images of nature in empty places.