For the second year in a row, there are fairly large numbers of snowy owls that are wintering nearby. Near Seattle, snow geese are a regular winter feature, but snowy owls are a rare treat. Reckless photographers, though, are in danger of driving our infrequent visitors well back north — or even worse.
One factor that can have a significant impact on the quality of your images is how sharp they are. Sometimes I like being able to stand up close to a large print and enjoy the clear definition around the smallest details. Sharpness helps the images look more lifelike.
While there's also something to be said for the art of blurring away the fine details, producing sharp images is something that most nature photographers want to accomplish, at least some of the time. The quality of your equipment plays a big role in how sharp your images are, but so does your technique.
Here are some tips for getting the sharpest images out of the equipment you already own:
The full moon may provide an excuse for all sorts of crazy activities, but it can also provide an extra special element to landscape photographs. Here are some tips for capturing the moon as a part of a landscape image.
Every so often, there's a comet that's so bright it can light up the night sky. But a couple times a year, comets that have long since passed by, or maybe even disintegrated entirely, can light up the night sky, too.
The phenomenon is called the Zodiacal Light and it's the result of a giant cloud of comet dust that stretches from Mercury to Jupiter. It's about as bright as the Milky Way and it's visible with the naked eye about two hours before sunrise in the fall; two hours after sunset in the spring.
Blue skies are fine for travel brochures, but my favorite landscape images have an element of drama. And they're captured at what I call the edge of a storm.
While walking along the shore of Mono Lake in California, I saw an osprey fly overhead with a giant stick firmly locked in its talons. Not only was I surprised to see an osprey there, I was stunned it would even nest in the area.
The scientific name for osprey translates to "fish eagle." Mono Lake, however, is so salty that only brine shrimp live in its waters.
Someone who knows I'm a nature photographer, but isn't one himself, recently asked me what I do on cloudy days.
"On a day like today," he said, gesturing out a window toward the gray sky, "what would you photograph? Anything?"
