When you are photographing wildlife you need to blend in with your surroundings. This allows the animal to behave naturally. In this picture, I crawled up a ditch and sat there until the meadowlark forgot about me and went about it's day, allowing me to capture it singing.
- Stearns Lake, Louisville, CO
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Tim Seibert (of Flatirons ProMedia) and I started at 5:30am and drove to Greenbelt Mesa. Once we arrived, we hiked for about a mile. I was taking a long exposure of the cars moving and then Tim showed me how to use foreground. He suggested that I use a tree as foreground and use the Flatirons as background. -Greenbelt Open Space, Boulder, CO After the sunrise, we went to Eldorado Canyon State Park. There were multiple waterfalls there. I had recently acquired a ten-stop filter. I took this picture. Not only is my picture over exposed and out of focus but there were strange pink marks. This happens when light enters the view finder during a long exposure. With a long exposure and ND-filter, this light is coming in through the lens and more light is coming in through the viewfinder. You can fix by using MUP mode on your camera. Normally, light is entering the lens faster than it is entering the viewfinder.
I created this sun star using a small aperture stop or a large F#. In this case, F22. I used the fence as a leading line up and through the picture. I also used a warming filter but that has no effect on the sun star. It is used to warm the picture and increase the contrast in the warm parts of the picture and makes a softer effect.
- Flatirons Vista, Boulder, CO The 10 stop is an extremely dark filter that blocks of almost all the light entering your camera which can be really useful for landscape photography because it lets you slow down your shutter speed to great lengths. This allows you to make smooth and ghostly water. A 3 stop ND filter is the less extreme version of the 10 stop. The 3 stop lets you increase contrast in the picture and slow down your exposure by 3 stops of light. This will allow you to get somewhat silky water in mid day. When the sun sets the filter will give you the same effect that you have with the 10 stop in the day. This is the average low priced ND filter. Circular polarizing filters reduce haze in your photos increasing color saturation and giving you clear reflections off of wet and metallic surfaces, giving plants and rocks increased clarity and color saturation, and letting you see under the surface of lakes and streams. I was looking for a shadowy place to slow down my exposure which makes the glossy water effect. I am using the river as a leading line from left to right. I also used a warming filter to bring out the earthiness in the rocks and river.
-Clear Creek, CO It was Saturday and I had just woke up when my dad calls me out. He points at the bird I had been chasing around the block. I used F 8 to keep the background blurred but sum of the trees in focus. The bird was on a fence which I hid from the viewer but the house was still in the shot.
-My Backyard, Louisville, CO We were near a volcano and we were expecting the water to be warm so we all jumped in. Surprise the water was freezing! While everybody was swimming, I walked up the hill and took this pic. I did a panorama and a long exposure of 18 seconds for each of the 3 panoramic shots. Then in Light Room I attached them all together and got this.
- Rincon de la Vieja, Costa Rica This is a picture of a red winged blackbird, It was singing in the sun. The lake made a nice blurred out background using an F stop of 5 and a large aperture allowing me to blur the background but keep the subject in focus.
- Warembourg Open Space, Louisville, CO I took this picture in Costa Rica. We were in a bird hut and the humming birds would come and eat the bugs that were attracted to the fresh bananas used to attract toucans. This bird was sitting on a stick that supported a banana. The sky was dark and overcast and made for some great soft light which brought out a lot of color in the bird.
- Arenal, Costa Rica I took this picture on the side of a road in Clear Creek Canyon. Originally I was going to take a down stream shot with the road as a leading line. But I noticed a cool rock with the water going over it. I used a ND filter to slow down the shutter and to bring out contrast. I also changed my white balance to daylight and got a nice blue color.
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