This is the 2nd in my series of blog posts on photography. In my first post I discussed photography equipment and some tips and pitfalls to avoid. In this post I’ll focus on basic technical aspects of photography which can positively impact your photos.

The saying goes “even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while”.  If you don’t know how your camera works, this pretty much summarizes your chances of getting a great photo. If you really want to take your images to the next level, you are going to need to understand some basic technical aspects of your camera and how they impact your images. For the purposes of this post I’m going to assume you have a Digital SLR camera.

There are many technical areas we can explore in photography. For this post I’m going to focus (pun intended) on 3 key areas: Light sensitivity (ISO), depth of field (Aperture) and shutter speed.  The most important thing to understand is that all 3 of these are interrelated when it comes to how your camera operates.

First lets review a few terms. ISO refers to the light sensitivity of the image senor in your camera.  Aperture refers to the diameter of the opening of the shutter in your camera which impacts light reaching the sensor. Aperture also impacts depth of field or how sharp objects appear in an image from near to far.  Shutter speed relates to how long the shutter is open which impacts light hitting the sensor as well as the sharpness of objects in the image.  We’ll explore each of these in more detail below.

ISO: This term pre-dates the digital era where you could purchase film which had a specific light sensitivity or ISO. In today’s digital era, light sensitivity is manipulated by adjusting the ISO setting on your camera which impacts the digital sensor’s sensitivity to light. Grab your camera and take a look at the buttons on the top. You should see a setting for ISO on the top of the camera or in the menu settings. Depending on your camera model you can adjust this setting somewhere between 50- 64,000 or even higher in high-end cameras.  For most photography you’ll adjust this setting to somewhere between 100- 6400.  Higher ISO settings enable the camera’s sensor to be more sensitive to light, meaning it can accept more light to capture the image.  Lower ISO settings are less light-sensitive but they provide sharper images. The downside of higher ISO is that it often causes something called image “noise”.  The best way to describe noise is when you look closely at an image you’ll see graininess to the image…it won’t seem as sharp. Depending on the subject this may or may not be desirable. In the example below, there is noticeable noise but only as you inspect closely.

Taken at ISO 1600 , If you zoom in closely you’ll see the grainy nature of the high ISO in the sky

While it is possible to reduce “noise” in post processing you’ll want to avoid high amounts of noise in your images unless that’s a look your intend.  Higher quality cameras manage noise better at high ISO settings.  In lower end cameras the noise in images can become unusable at medium to high ISO settings. This is something you’ll see discussed in camera reviews and is worth considering if you expect to shoot in low light situations.

Adjusting settings such as Shutter speed and Aperture etc.   Again take a look at your camera. You should see a dial with markers for Aperture and Shutter priority. The names of these settings will vary by manufacturer. On a Canon camera you should see something like P (Program mode), A (Intelligent Auto) ,  Av (Aperture priority), Tv (shutter priority), M (Manual) and there may be a few more settings like B (Bulb) and C for custom which I won’t cover here but should be covered in your camera manual.

A (Auto Mode). Fully Automatic mode. This is generally what many photographers refer to as the “dummy” mode. Not meant to be derogatory but essentially you aren’t controlling the camera in these modes.  The camera is making all the decisions about settings. The camera looks at the scene and evaluates the situation and adjusts the ISO, Speed, Aperture, focal point and flash based on algorithms programmed into the camera. If you don’t care to know anything about your camera or creative photography, this is your no thought point and shoot setting.   Your creative options will be limited in this mode. side note: this is the only mode where the flash will typically pop up automatically if the camera detects underexposure in the scene.

P (Program AE)– similar to the fully Automatic mode, but you get to control a few more items like flash, focus point, drive mode etc. The camera will still fully control Aperture, Shutter speed and ISO so it’s 1 step closer to allowing you to make more decisions about your creative options.

Tv (Shutter Priority)– Setting the camera to Tv allows you to manually control shutter speed and the camera will automatically adjust aperture to try to get a properly exposed shot. You’ll want to use this setting when you want to control the amount of time the shutter is open to get a stop action or a deliberate motion effect in your images. Some cameras will allow the shutter to remain open for as short as 1/8000 sec to as long as 30 seconds (these settings may vary based on camera model).  In general if you want to “stop” the action you use higher shutter speeds. For example if you are shooting birds in flight, sports action or something where you want to capture that moment, using shutter priority will be the way to go.

Taken at 1/500 sec at F4. Sometimes stopping the action allows you to capture that decisive moment that tells a story

Tip: often when shooting in Shutter priority, you’ll want to use the “Drive” setting to capture continuous images at high-speed as you hold down the shutter button. This allows you to shoot quick successive images of action and in post processing select the sharpest or most appealing image out of the many taken.  This is more important when shooting action shots.

Shutter priority is a really fun setting to get creative images. While most photographers use this setting to capture crisp action shots, you can purposely slow the shutter speed to blur action to get a creative effect in your image. Have you ever seen a city night photo where the car lights are a blur trail of light and the rest of the city is in sharp focus? You can get this effect with a slow shutter speed.  Depending on the speed of the cars you can adjust the shutter speed to a fifth of a second to a few seconds or longer to get these long trailing lights. Longer shutter speed = longer light trails.

Have you ever seen travel shots where there is one person standing in a busy bustling crowd and that one person is in sharp focus while the crowd is a blur? Again, a longer shutter speed will blur moving objects but still objects will remain in sharp focus giving you a cool dramatic photo.

Panning is another fun way to experiment  with shutter speed.  Panning is where you move your camera to follow the subject as you shoot. A simple illustration below shows when you pan at a relatively slow shutter speed, the background blurs with motion while the subject stays in relative sharpness. The net effect emphasizes the motion of the subject. In the example below I shot at a relatively slow 1/30 sec shutter speed. If I shot this at 1/500 sec the girl would be “frozen” and you lose the impact of her motion. The blur can tell a story.

Taken at 1/30 sec at F4, this is a simple illustration of panning to show action

Panning takes a bit of practice and experimentation with different shutter speeds but provides amazing results when you get it right.  Tip: consider using AI -Focus to help the camera focus on the subject as you (pan) move the camera. I encourage you to experiment with shutter speeds as the creative possibilities are limitless.

Av (Aperture Priority)– As a nature photographer, this is my favorite setting and my default in most situations.  Just like in Tv when you set your camera to Aperture priority, you control the Aperture setting and the camera will automatically adjust the shutter speed to try to capture a properly exposed image. Changing the Aperture adjusts the F-stop or amount of light which reaches the sensor. It also manipulates the Depth of Field or how in focus your background is in the image. A lower F-stop number (i.e.: F 2.8, F4) creates a narrow depth of field or more out of focus background. Adjusting (Aperture) allows you to draw focus on a subject to direct the viewer’s eye. Narrow depth of field also allows you to put distracting backgrounds out of focus.

Taken with a 50mm F1.4 this illustrates how a large aperture can blur background

To get a good understanding of depth of field do a quick experiment. Go into your backyard with a friend and have them stand 10 feet away from you. Take a series of photos of them where you focus on their face but adjust the Aperture on your camera through the range of F-stops from lowest to highest for each successive image. Download the images and review them on your computer. What you’ll see is as you move through the images is that the background will become more in focus as you move to higher F-stop settings (F11, 13, 14, 16, 18 and so on). There are cases where you may want the entire image in focus so you’ll choose a higher F-stop, say for a wide-angle landscape of the mountains and a meadow.  In other cases you may want to blur out districting background elements, for example a close up photo of a single flower. Experimenting with Aperture and depth of field is really fun and will help you make some really creative images.

M (Manual Mode): Some photographers choose to use the M (Manual) mode so they can manually set shutter speed, aperture and ISO to get the effect they are looking for. This is a popular setting for photographers who learned to shoot on film cameras because for many years Manual was the only way to shoot film. It’s worth trying Manual mode to get an understanding of the relationship between Aperture, Shutter speed and how adjustments impact exposure etc.  Keep in mind, in this mode the camera lets you make mistakes because you are now fully in control of all the settings. So if you set the Shutter Speed too slow and the Aperture too large you are going to get a blown out overexposed photo because too much light will be hitting the sensor for too long. The camera won’t “fix” it.  You are going to have to manually watch the exposure when shooting in this mode. Personally I find focusing on one aspect (say Av or Tv) and letting the camera adjust the other setting allows you to focus more on the subject and creative aspects of the image to get the effect you desire.  That said it is worth experimenting with M mode to see what it’s like to completely control all settings.

The relationship between ISO, Shutter speed and Aperture. When you first start out with photography, the most challenging technical aspect of the camera is understanding the relationship between these settings and how they can positively and negatively impact your images.   Lets review some examples to illustrate the relationship:

For this scenario lets assume you are shooting in Av (Aperture priority). As you increase the Aperture (lower F-stop number), more light reaches the sensor. So in effect the shutter speed will be adjusted in order to get a properly exposed image. For example if you set your camera to the lowest F-stop number (say F 2.8) which is the largest aperture…more light will be let in to the sensor meaning the shutter speed will need to be faster in order to get a proper exposure (not over exposed).  So if there is a lot of light in your scene (full daylight), the camera will increase the shutter speed to compensate for all the light,  which will cause action to be stopped in your image.  If you are trying to get a blurred effect and there is a lot of light in the scene you will struggle to get that effect with a low F-stop number (as an example the person in the crowd I mentioned above).   You can manipulate a few other settings to help to “slow” the image. You can decrease the F-stop (higher number), decrease the ISO, (light sensitivity). You can also use a polarizer or neutral density filter to limit the light reaching the sensor.  The net effect will allow the shutter to stay open longer giving you the blurred motion you desire.

Shot in late morning daylight I had to use a neutral density filter to get the shutter speed to slow down to 2 seconds. This allowed me to get the cotton candy effect in the water I was looking for

The same works in reverse. Say you are using the Tv (shutter priority) and you are trying to shoot an action shot in a low light gymnasium at a sporting event. As you increase shutter speed to capture action, it’s going capture less light to the sensor. By default the camera will try to increase the Aperture (lower number) to let in as much light as possible to capture a correct exposure. If your camera and/or lens can only go to say a max aperture of say F 5.6 (common in a telephoto lens), the image may come out under exposed and/or blurry because the camera can’t capture enough light to stop the action.  There are some adjustments you can make in low light situations to help get more light to the sensor. One of them is to increase the ISO. If you recall, a higher ISO will make the sensor more sensitive to light, but the downside is noise.  So in the above case you may be able to increase the ISO to say 1600 or higher and you may be able to stop the “blur” in your action shot, but the downside is you may get more “noise” in the image. So the capability of your camera and lens can, in extreme cases, have an impact on image quality.   This is where photographers often invest in higher quality camera or lenses which can provide better results at the extremes of light.

Low light also has an impact on sharpness of subjects. If you need to shoot at slower speeds in low light any camera shake will cause blurriness in your photos. A tripod or monopod can help you stabilize the camera. Cameras and lenses with vibration control features can also help in these low light situations where you can’t use a tripod, but there are limits.  Also you often can’t control motion in your subjects… so the only way to prevent a blurry subject is to have a faster shutter speed. Generally shutter speeds of 1/250 sec and higher will allow you to get stop action depending on the speed of the subject. A good rule of thumb is that 1 over the focal range of the lens is typically what you can handhold and still avoid camera shake. So for example if you are shooting a telephoto lens and you are zoomed out to 200mm, typically the slowest shutter speed you can shoot handheld is 1/200. As noted above vibration reduction lenses will help at slower shutter speeds, practice will help in this area as well.

To summarize, you can manipulate the Shutter speed, Aperture and ISO to help you get the desired effect  in your photos.  If you are shooting an image and not getting the result you expect, consider these 3 settings and where you can make adjustments to get the result you desire.

In my next blog post I’ll tackle a few other areas such as exposure, exposure bracketing, white balance, HDR, the histogram and other technical tips and tricks. Stay tuned.

There is a massive amount of info on the internet to help you improve your photography. The point of this blog is to inform a novice photographer who is looking to improve the quality of their photos or just learn some new tips.   I decided to start blogging on this topic because over the years I’d get questions from friends, family, co-workers time and again. What should I buy? What’s a good camera? What do I need and how did you take that photo?!

This 1st blog post will focus on the “gear”. I’m not going to cover every piece of equipment out there, but I’m going to cover the basics of what I’d buy if I was starting at square one.

This is just my opinion but knowledge on photography generally falls into 3 broad areas and I’ll blog on each of them eventually.

1. The gear!  All the cool stuff you need to make great photos. Cameras, tripods, various lenses, filters, flashes and on and on.
2. The technical stuff.  How the camera works, understanding what an f-stop is, what ISO is,  adjusting settings and the giant world of post processing images in computer programs.
3. The “art”.  This is about seeing and making great compositions that cause a viewer to pause and contemplate the subject. There are some general “rules” you can learn about composing great images, but remember breaking composition rules is always allowed in the world of photography!

The gear.  When I first got into photography around 1998 shortly after getting married and at the dawn of the digital camera,  I mistakenly thought I needed expensive equipment to take great photos. In some cases this is true, but it’s not a requirement to make compelling images. Some of the best photo’s I’ve ever seen were taken on low-end consumer grade digital cameras that cost a few hundred dollars. What I came to learn is that developing a strong understanding of how your camera works and marrying that knowledge with some basics in creative composition is what takes you to the next level in the quality of your images. You don’t have to know everything but you need to know some core things about your equipment to really use your camera creatively. If all you ever do is leave the camera in the “A” or automatic mode, you really limit your creative possibilities.

Don’t go nuts on gear! Have you ever heard of the military industrial complex? I like to say there is a photography industrial complex. There are thousands of manufacturers out there working to part you from your hard-earned dollars….and let me tell you in my early years they did just that.  It’s important to know that there will always be the next new thing or must have gadget that “will transform your photos”. Try not to get too distracted with all the gear possibilities and stay focused on what matters most to you.

Cameras! Hey what about Smartphones?!  Yes, I know the stats, more pictures are taken on smartphones than any other device by a large factor. I may do a blog on that at some point. That said, Smartphones still have some significant disadvantages when it comes to creative composition and technical capability compared to an SLR camera.  Smartphones are a great complement to an SLR for its versatility and ability to quickly capture a scene to help you refine your composition or quickly capture a fleeting moment. Also some smartphone tech is bleeding into SLR cameras (like wireless support, integration with mobile apps and more) and some SLR tech is bleeding over to phones (like Iphone 7 low light capabilities for example). For now I’m going to focus on what pro and amateur photographers are using today and that’s predominantly SLRs.  I recommend you start with a good solid Digital SLR camera that supports interchangeable lenses like a Canon Rebel or Nikon D series camera. Another possible option is what is called mirrorless ILC (Interchangeable lens camera).   Sony, Olympus and a few others are releasing some great “Mirrorless” cameras these days.   Mirrorless cameras are evolving quickly so worth considering.  Mirrorless aren’t quite as capable as an SLR in areas such as light sensitivity and image quality but they are cheaper, lighter and improving all the time.  If you look at my Badlands post these were all taken with a mirrorless Olympus OM-D E-M1. Overall I was impressed with most of the image quality, particularly ones in full day light. Here are some examples to give you and idea of the size differences between a comparable MILC and DSLR. As you can see the mirrorless is much smaller and lighter, which is appealing if you are walking around all day with a camera and extra gear.

Canon 5d Mark III on left, Olympus OM-D E-M1 on the right. The Canon has a 17-40mm lens and the Olympus has a 12-40mm, so close in range. Both are pro class lenses. 

So why are mirrorless cameras and lenses so much smaller? You can skip this part if the reason doesn’t matter to you.  An SLR camera has a mechanic shutter that remains open until you press the shutter button. With the shutter open it reflects the image (light) coming through the lens to the viewfinder to the top of the camera. What you are actually seeing is a reflection off a little tiny mirror in the camera showing you what the light is reflecting through the lens. When you press the shutter the mirror retracts and the light is exposed directly to the sensor capturing the image, then it swings back open again so you can “see” through the lens.  This is why if you watch closely you’ll see the viewfinder go dark for an instant when you press the shutter. I know complicated isn’t it? All the parts that contribute to this fancy dance add size and weight to the camera. The lenses that accompany DSLRs also tend to have more glass elements in them to improve image quality. Mirrorless cameras have no mechanical shutter or mirror to reflect the light. The light goes directly to the digital sensor which is displayed on the camera LCD on the back showing you a live view of the scene. (Note some DSLRs support live view as well…and I highly recommend this feature). Most mirrorless cameras don’t have a viewfinder on the top of the camera and if they do it’s showing you a digital image not an actual mirror image of the scene. All of this is what makes them much lighter, less parts inside both the camera and the lenses.

When choosing a camera, if possible go try out a few different options at a camera shop. Costco has a pretty nice variety of entry-level DSLRs on display. Poke around and play with a few to see how you like the way it “feels” in your hands. Pick it up, turn it over hold it up to eye level, try moving some of the controls both while you are looking at them and while you have the camera at eye level. Can you easily find the controls? Does it seem intuitive to you?   I’m personally partial to Canon, but my very first SLR was a Olympus and as you can see I’ve come back to them to try mirrorless. There are many great quality cameras from a variety of manufacturers. If you like reviews, two of my favorite sites are Tomsguide and DPreview.

When and where to buy? If you are on a budget, consider used. There are always new models coming out and people selling their old equipment, much of it in like new condition. If you go used proceed with caution and make sure you can return to a reputable seller if there is an issue. Check the sellers history (in the case of ebay) and ask many questions before buying. Get close up pictures of the camera or lens and ask about any repairs or damage before committing to the purchase.  If you prefer new, buy near Christmas as this is when you’ll see some of the best deals.  Also consider getting the “old” model right after the mfg releases the next-gen of the camera. Often retailers are discounting the old model to get it out of inventory. This is how i bought my mirrorless Olympus.

Where to buy is preference. Im comfortable buying over the internet but you may not want to do that for your 1st purchase. Most camera equipment is made in Japan or southeast asia so it tends to get shipped in on the coasts. I’ve personally found B&H Photo Video out of NY to be one of the best online camera shops.  (they also have a massive store in Brooklyn but I’ve never been there). They have very good pricing, great inventory and great customer service.  If you want to buy local, just know that you may pay a little more in a camera shop, Costco, Walmart etc but it may be worth it to be able to touch and feel before you buy.

Tripods! What you’ll come to find is that often great photos were taken from a camera mounted on a tripod. There are many reasons to have a tripod 1) it forces you to slow down, take time and compose. 2) It allows you to steady the camera to avoid blur in your photos caused by camera shake.  3) Some images, like close up or macro, require getting very close to the subject in often awkward positions. The tripod can really help in these situations.

There are a wide variety of tripods made in various materials ranging from expensive but lightweight carbon fiber to aluminum (popular) and steel.  Generally carbon fiber tripods are the most expensive.  I recommend trying out a few different options at a camera shop. Retail camera shops are few and far between these days but if you have one nearby this is an item worth experimenting with before buying. Generally you’ll want to get a tripod that is strong enough to hold your camera with your heaviest lens.  If you get a tripod that has a “center post” which adjusts up and down, make sure you get a tripod that is tall enough to be at standing eye level with the center post in the full down position.  I recommend this because in many cases you won’t want to extend the center post much as this will make the tripod “top-heavy” and unstable causing the very shake you are trying to avoid. Also if you end up doing macro (close up) photography, often you’ll need to get a tripod very low to the ground and in odd angles. A center post that can’t be removed will immediately make this nearly impossible. If you do get a tripod with a center post, make sure it can be removed if needed. Unfortunately when you research tripods some manufactures list the max height of the tripod with the center post extended to max height. Again, this is a mistake I learned the hard way and why I recommend trying out tripods in person.  So get a measuring tape, stand up and measure from the ground to your eye level in inches. You’ll want at least this as the max height of the tripod with the center post down, not fully extended. Also, as you do more work in nature with uneven surfaces you’ll come to find that having a tripod that can extend above your eye height is useful. There will be times when the ground is uneven and you need to extend the tripod legs beyond what you normally would on an even surface. In this photo below I was standing on a hill with 2 tripod legs fully extended down the slope. Without the extra height of the tripod legs, I would have been bent over trying to look into the view finder. I stood watching this deer slowly move up the hill for about 20 minutes until the light was just right. If I had to crouch down for 20 min my back would have been killing me. 

Some of my favorite tripod manufacturers are Really Right Stuff (RRS), Manfrotto, Gitzo and SLIK, but there are many more. Today I own both a Manfrotto and RRS. Top is the RRS pro tripod with no center post. Bottom is the Manfrotto with a center post half extended. Close up of a ballhead.

Ballheads. I bet you never thought that would be a word in your vocabulary! That said learn it because it will make your life much easier. Again another costly lesson I learned. I started with a somewhat inflexible complex adjusting head on my 1st tripod that had all these different dials and levers I had to adjust and it drove me nuts. Ballheads are much easier to manipulate as they can basically turn in nearly any direction you want with just a quick spin of a dial , swivel the head and spin the dial back again to lock it in. This will save you a ton of frustration when you are composing shots.  There are many brands out there but I use a Really Right Stuff ballhead with quick release plates. Again, you don’t need to go expensive here, get the basic one to start. Manfrotto has some reasonable priced ballheads too. Also these ballheads tend to be universal fit meaning you can just screw them on to nearly any tripod, so you can have a Gitzo tripod with a RRS ballhead. This is an area where mix and match can be useful. Initially you are fine just sticking with the whole setup from one tripod brand.

Plates: you’ll want to get an extra ballhead locking plate too if you have more than one camera so you aren’t constantly having to unscrew the palate and switch it to swap to the other camera.

Lenses: If you are unsure what type of photography you are interested in, start with just the standard kit lens when you buy your 1st camera. Generally the kit lens will be either a single midrange lens like the one shown below (18-55mm). Sometimes the kit will also come with a telephoto lens like the 75-300mm to help you zoom in closer to subjects. This is a nice starter kit to get nearly anyone going. Most of the manufactures offer something similar.

If you plan to do sports photography or take pictures of fast moving subjects (like kids)…I’ll cover that in a later blog post, but suffice it to say you may decide to invest in a higher quality telephoto lens. Getting good action shots in different lighting conditions and distances can be challenging. For example your kid charging down the basket ball court in a somewhat dimly lit gym from 25 yards away often takes a higher quality lens. Without a fast lens most of the images will turn out blurry and you’ll be frustrated. Entry level telephoto lenses just don’t cut it for “fast” shots, particularly in indoor or low light. But again, start with the reasonable priced stuff first.  You won’t need to get nuts like the guys you see on the sidelines at pro sports with the lens that look like they are shooting a bazooka, but you may need to step up to a slightly higher quality glass and it will make all the difference.

The dirty little secret about lenses! As you start to get deeper into creative photography what you’ll discover is that it’s all about the lenses.  And the lenses can be expensive as you move up in quality and capability. This is because they are finely engineered objects with precision parts inside. It’s not inexpensive to make a high quality lens.  The camera matters,  but at a certain point you’ll discover you want to upgrade to higher quality lenses to get better photos. This is where this hobby can get expensive.   When you get to this point it’s important to know what type of photography you are most drawn to as that will inform the type of lens you want to invest in first. Do you like to shoot super wide-angle dramatic shots. Do you like to shoot birds in flight or fast moving action sports (Canon 70-200 F4 or F2.8)? Do you like to shoot street scenes and architecture (tilt shift lens or 50mm f1.4)? Intimate portraits (100mm 2.8)? Close up macro shots of flowers (60 or 100mm Macro lens)? Knowing this will help you pick that 1st expensive lens to invest in. My 1st expensive lens was a Canon pro series 24-105mm L lens at about $750. It’s still my favorite lens to this day for its sharpness and versatility . It cost more than my camera at that time. This isn’t uncommon, but just realize you don’t have to do this. It’s just where many photographers end up when they want to move their photos to the next level. Don’t feel like you have to make this investment now, but just know that it may get to this point eventually. So when you get here you need to really know what type of photography you are passionate about so you can match that to the best pro lens. And make friends with a rich photographer so you can buy their used lenses when they upgrade!

Other must have gadgets: One of the best gear tips I ever got was …Hoodman Loupe! An absolute necessity for digital cameras so you can see the image on the lcd after you take it. Without this you’ll constantly struggle to see what you just took, particularly in daylight. Extension tubes: If you can’t afford a dedicated macro lens, these are an inexpensive way to modify a regular lens to allow it to focus much closer. Photo backpacks. There are hundreds of options here, so again do a bit of research before committing to a backpack. Or you can buy one of the 8 backpacks I no longer use! Don’t make my mistake and think you need a special backpack for every situation.

Filters.  If you plan to take nature photos, a few filters I highly recommend are a circular polarizer and a Neutral Density filter.  First the Polarizing filter. Both of these filters screw to the end of your lens so the light filters through to the image sensor. A polarizer can be used in many situations but most often used to darken sky’s to give a deep rich feel to the sky and clouds and to remove annoying “glare” in scenes. I use this filter nearly every time I’m in a forest taking photos. It helps to remove the waxy glare that often stands out in on leaves and other greenery where it’s reflecting the light. You just spin the filter as you are looking through your viewfinder and you’ll see that awful glare disappear. It’s like magic!  Depending on how bright it is you can also use it to generally darken a scene to show down action and get that smooth cottony look to water flowing…but this depends largely on how bright it is and the speed of your camera.

The Neutral Density filter plays a specific role which gets a little more technical but bare with me. There are times when you are shooting a subject in daylight and you want to “slow” down the motion to get a blur effect, say a cotton look to a waterfall or running water in a stream. If it’s too bright out you may not be able to block enough light from the camera sensor to get the shutter to stay open long enough to get that blur look. This is where the Neutral Density filter comes in. You spin the filter and it adds darkening or light blocking without degrading the image quality. Think very expensive high-end sunglasses where you can dial how dark they go. You can adjust the darkness by spinning the filter to get the slow down effect you are looking for. Below is an example of a daytime shot where I used my Neutral Density filter to slow down the water flow by dialing it to block light to the sensor so the shutter could remain open longer without over exposing (making it look too bright). This effect works great for waterfalls and running rivers.

So I’m tired after writing all that so that’s it for now. I’ll be back soon with blog 2 on the “technical” stuff, then wrap up with the “Art” of photography.