"The Mountains and the Music"

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Guide to composing landscape photographs by Jan Linden There really are no effective formulas for composing good landscapes. Nonetheless, the general suggestions that follow can probably help you get better ones.   1 - Every landscape should have a focal point. This is the center of interest, the part of the picture your eye is drawn to. It can be a distant mountain, the facade of a building, or a clump of trees. Without a focal point, your landscape will likely fall flat.   2 - Make sure the subject is big enough. If you use a wide-angle lens, a distant focal point such as a mountain may be too small or the sea may seem to trail off into nothing but water. Your eye seeks a center of interest. If there is none, it will simply wander off to infinity because there is nothing in the picture to hold your attention.   Read more    How to shoot "Big Suns" by Jan Linden Sure, these pictures may border on clichés, but they are clichés that never fail to grab us. We're all suckers for that frame-filling drama of Ol' Sol looming large on the horizon. And we all know how to get those shots of big suns - just shoot the horizon with that fabulously expensive, super-speed, extralow-dispersion glass, apochromatic tele, right?   Read more   Travel Photography: National Parks in the USA by Sharon Elrod Photographers, amateur and professional alike, can turn a summer road trip into an exciting and challenging photo opportunity. Scenic National Parks throughout the continental United States provide wildlife and landscape vistas not found anywhere else. In addition, if you’re really looking carefully, the wonders of nature can be found on most roads and highways. Opportunity abounds for great pictures in Glacier National Park, for example. This area was formed by glaciers and remains in its primitive condition for the most part. Only one road crosses the Park. Bears, wolves, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, deer, elk and moose are the larger carnivores who call this Park home. Various habitats provide conditions for a variety of plant and animal life, thus creating a unique environment not equaled anywhere else in the country.   Read more   Applying digital camera firmware updates by Andrea Stillwell Did you know that your digital camera just might have a firmware update available that can bestow it with new features that are otherwise only available on newer models? And if so, those new features won't cost you a dime! All digital cameras are powered by a tiny computer chip, and the instructions and data (firmware) that chip uses to give the camera its functionality reside in a flash memory module located on the camera's circuit board. Since this memory can be written to as well as read, the manufacturer can update the firmware at any time. There are other benefits to updating your digital camera's firmware in addition to simply adding new features. Firmware updates are...   Read more   7 Tips for reducing camera shake by Rick Rouse Have you ever spent an entire day shooting landscape photos only to return home and discover that many of those images that looked great on the LCD preview screen came out all blurry when viewed on your computer? Chances are you have. This article offers 7 tips for reducing camera shake and capturing the sharpest images possible.   Read more    Understanding your digital camera's ISO setting by Abram James Back in the days when film cameras ruled the photography world, we had to purchase different "speeds" of film to use under various lighting conditions. Every roll of film produced came from the factory marked with an ISO rating, and the higher the ISO rating the less light it would take to capture a properly exposed image on that film using the same camera settings. Of course this meant that you could use a faster shutter speed or a narrower aperture in low light and still come away with a properly exposed photograph. ISO 100 film was the norm, and that speed was used the majority of the time. But you could also purchase film with an ISO rating of 200, 400, 800, 1000, or even higher if your particular shooting requirements demanded it. Back then changing from a scene with low ambient light to a brightly-lit one (or vice versa) caused a problem because you had to switch gears by changing to a different roll of film. The advent of digital cameras made shooting under varying lighting conditions a lot easier. We no longer have to change to a different speed of film whenever the light level changes. Instead, we simply turn a dial or change a menu setting to instruct the camera to shoot using a higher ISO equivalent (light sensitivity).   Read more    Amateur photographers and copyright protection by Charles Townsend Spend any time at all around a photography forum and you're sure to see this question asked time and again: "Is it really important for an amateur photographer to take the steps required to protect the rights to his/her images?" The answer to that question is a resounding Maybe. For the most part, it depends on the type of pictures you take and how much you think they're worth - or might possibly be worth in the future.   Read more   Creative Photography: Rules are made to be broken by Andrew Goodall Creative photography is a mix of many ingredients: art and technology, skill and patience, cold mechanical know-how and individual flair. For a beginner learning the basics, it would be nice if there was a simple set of rules to follow to make the whole thing easier. Surely someone could just tell you what aperture to use in a given situation, or how to structure a composition to get the best results every time? Photography is a lot like learning to drive. With a car, you need to know the road rules, and you need to know the basic skills of steering, accelerating and braking. These can be learned easily with a bit of practice. But even when you have mastered the essentials, you still need to get to know your car, because each car is a little different. Then you need experience with night driving, wet-weather driving, off-road driving... The point is, the basic skills will only take you so far. In photography, you will find that rules help you in the beginning, and some rules will stay with you throughout your career. The trick is to understand when the rules don't apply, or when you should choose to ignore them. This is the type of knowledge that can't easily be taught. It comes with experience, and is what gives you individuality as a photographer. Read more