There was a time on Inle Lake, Myanmar where the fishermen really did use cone-shaped nets you and where they did in fact move around their long narrow boats in a somewhat acrobatic fashion, but today that ‘old way’ of fishing has been exchanged for the much wider cast of the gill net.

Yet, a number of the ‘old guard’ anticipate the afternoon arrival of tourists like my students and myself, and as the sun starts to set, they put themselves in a position to ‘perform’ and near sunset the performance takes on a more hurried performance, and soon we are witness to a crescendo of movements that are mindful of a ballet performance.

While seated in our long boat, my students and myself, jockey for position, backs bent over and arms outstretched with cameras in hand near the waters edge. We are also afforded the opportunity to direct our subjects in so far as requesting them to row closer, or move left or right or lean back or forward.

Shooting them against the strong backlight of the sun results in countless silhouettes, due to the rapid fire of our cameras motor drive, (CH) and as they move about we are afforded numerous starbursts, as the sun peaks out from behind their dance, starbursts that are made possible because we are using F/22.

And finally, the sun still has 25 minutes before it sets behind the mountains, and there is minimal color in the sky, so how did I capture the GOLDEN SUNSET light, 25 minutes BEFORE the golden sunset light appears? I set my WB to 10,000K and voila, the GOLDEN SUNSET light magically appeared. You keep shooting!

NikonD500, Nikkor 18-300mm, F/22@1/320 sec. 200 ISO…(extra tip: DO NOT USE ANY FILTERS, NOT EVEN UV HAZE/SKYLIGHT FILTERS as this will risk lens flare when shooting into the sun.)

You Keep Shooting,

-BPSOP Founder – Bryan F Peterson

Bryan Teaches:

Understanding Exposure & Your DSLR

Understanding Color, Seeing Color & Composing Color

Understanding Close-Up Photography

Mastering Nikon Flash Photography

The Art of Seeing

Understanding Composition

Creating sharp images can be challenging for most beginner photographers.

As a landscape photography instructor, I give my students several different tools that will help them be successful and produce tack sharp images.

In this article, I cover my favorite tools in-camera, as well as the settings I use to sharpen my images in Lightroom. All of the tips I give you here assume you are shooting RAW files.

Get Friendly with Your Tripod!

Make your tripod your best friend. Tripods can be heavy and bothersome to carry around, but they are necessary if you want to create the best sharp images. Make sure your tripod is a good quality, sturdy model. The cheaper models are a waste of your money.

A tripod will help you to slow down and contemplate your composition. Then you can do a complete scan of the image frame, and consider your best aperture for the scene. At this point, it’s easy to make slight adjustments, zoom in on your focus and make sure it’s tack sharp, and check your histogram to be sure the exposure is set correctly for the scene.

Shooting Without a Tripod

In my opinion, shooting without a tripod for landscape photography isn’t the best plan to get your sharpest images. If you are shooting without a tripod, check to be sure your shutter speed is fast enough to hide any camera shake. Also check your ISO, as you can increase the ISO to give you a faster shutter speed. Be aware at higher ISO’s, camera noise can be a consideration depending on your camera. Test your camera before you go out on a shoot to see what ISOs it can shoot without creating unneeded noise.

Many of the new advanced cameras have image stabilization either built into the camera or in the lens. That can be insurance for sharp images, but be sure to watch your shutter speed. Personally, I will not hand hold an image under a shutter speed of 100. I know the cameras can handle a lower shutter speed, but for me, it’s not worth taking a chance on a blurry image if I’m in a special location. I am the happiest with images that I have taken on my tripod, and I know they are rock solid. The tripod forces me to slow down and consider the best option for each scene.

Other Things to Think About

• Set your focus to single point 
• Keep your camera at the lowest ISO possible for the particular scene when shooting on a tripod. 
• Use the best lens you can for your camera. A quality lens will make all the difference for sharpness.
• Use a remote cable or self-timer to diminish camera shake when starting the shutter
• Use mirror lockup if available on your DSLR.

Adding sharpening within Lightroom 

When you download your images straight out of the camera, a RAW image file does not have any processing done to it. A JPEG file will have saturation, contrast, and sharpening applied in-camera. That’s why if you shoot JPEGs and RAWs, the JPEGs will often appear more appealing right out of the camera. They’re sharper, with more saturation and contrast than an unedited RAW file. If you are avoiding the last editing step of sharpening, then your images won’t turn out their best.

When you first start sharpening in Lightroom, make sure that you are looking at a contrast point on your image, zoomed into 100%. Take a look at the image and reduce the color noise by about 20% right away. It’s import to reduce noise before sharpening as you will end up sharpening any noise that’s in the picture if you don’t remove it.

The three main tools in the detail panel are the sharpening, radius and detail sliders and each image will require a different amount of each. I usually start with about 80-100 in the sharpening slider, 1 in radius, and 25 in detail. I leave the masking slider at 0 until a can preview what areas I don’t want to sharpen.

If sharpening and detail are too high, it will create a halo which means that the sharpening has added too much contrast. See the picture below. The radius controls the width of the halo. Reduce the radius slider until you don’t see the halo at all. Drag the sharpening slider to the right until it looks sharp, but not crispy. If you select the option/alt in the detail slider, it will show which edges are being sharpened in a greyscale preview. Sharpen just enough where you can barely see the outline of your subject in the image.

If you select Option + (Mac) -dragging | Alt  + (Win) -dragging in any of the Sharpening sliders in the Detail panel in Lightroom, it will display a greyscale preview of the slider’s effect. Previewing the edges of the masks (created with the Detail and Masking sliders) can be helpful in determining which option is best for the image that you’re working on. As a rule of thumb, use the Detail slider to suppress sharpening in landscape images, and use the Masking slider to suppress sharpening in portraits.  (In a portrait, you don’t want to sharpen lines or wrinkles in a face, and this preview will show you areas that you can back off on the sharpening.) And don’t forget, it is best to view an image at 100% to see the effects of sharpening (as well as noise reduction) accurately.

These tools will help with the sharpness of your images. If you need more help with your editing and organization in Lightroom, please consider taking my next Lightroom class and learn to get up to speed in 4 short weeks.

If you would like more information on how to create amazing images in Lightroom, take my next Lightroom Quick Start class here at BPSOP.

Sometimes the magic works. On this dark, somber windy morning in Vik, Iceland, the weather and light opened the door to motion-filled opportunities i.e. slow shutter speeds such as 1/2 and 1/4 second were readily available, particularly with low ISO’s and small apertures. Of course, a tripod would be needed as this would allow me to record a razor sharp image of the rocks, while at the same time record the ‘dance’ taking place in front of the rocks.

But since you can’t control the ‘dance’, (waves or the wind) you resign yourself to the act of “pray and spray”, and out of 113 shots, over the course of a mere 10 minutes, I managed to record four images that I felt best expressed this morning’s inclement weather. I liked how the sky and wave appear to be in sync. (In order to elevate the mood of the weather on this cold morning, I set a custom WB between Tungsten/Incandescent and Fluorescent which accounts for the somewhat blue cast seen in this mono-chromatic image.
Nikon D500, Nikkor 18-300mm, at 300mm, (effective focal length 450mm)
F20@1/2 sec. ISO 50.

You Keep Shooting,

-BPSOP Founder – Bryan F Peterson

Bryan Teaches:

Understanding Exposure & Your DSLR

Understanding Color, Seeing Color & Composing Color

Understanding Close-Up Photography

Mastering Nikon Flash Photography

The Art of Seeing

Understanding Composition

This post is one in a series on how to create a sense of place.

CASE STUDY: VIEWS INSIDE A NATURE RESERVE

Next time you’re taking photos on holiday or during a celebration, include detail shots to flesh out your story. Details shots, when added together with photos of people, help show the mood of your scene.

Have a look at the images in these two case studies. They are variations on the same theme, taken in the same location.

Do you see how each image is different from the rest yet is obviously part of a series? The secret is variation. Now imagine these images as part of a larger series that includes people. Can you see how having a variety of images of the surroundings helps create a sense of place?

Each images is a single idea. By combining several, a story is created.

TIPS TO GREAT DETAIL SHOTS:

1. Vary the camera angle in each shot. Shoot up, down, out, across, or through a subject.
2. Frame your subject tightly to omit clutter. Reveal part of the subject.

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Amazing Travel Photos Made Easy

Celebrate Your Life in Beautiful Images Part 1

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Photography Essentials

No post processing skills necessary for any of Brit’s courses.

Amazing Travel Photos Made Easy teaches you how to create a collection of images that not only documents your holiday but that conveys how it felt to be there.

This course focuses on the creative side of photography and emphasizes getting all your shots in-camera.

You’ll learn how to get amazing travel photos using any kind of camera!

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Get your camera to finally do what you want!

Do you want to take better pictures but don’t know where to start? Or have you been photographing for a while, but the results are hit and miss?

Everything is explained simply and clearly. This easy to follow course is designed to grow your confidence and skill.

Even if you’ve been photographing for a while, Photography Essentials will help you get great shots consistently.

Celebrate Your Life in Beautiful Images Part 1 gets you started photographing how you want your life to look and what you want more of in your life.

Ever wonder if the craziness of your life is, indeed, worth celebrating? The answer is a resounding YES!

Start taking images that that look like they came out of a glossy magazine.

This course focuses on the creative side of photography. You’ll learn how to capture images of your everyday life in a fresh and exciting way.

Celebrate Your Life in Beautiful Images Part 2 takes you further by focusing on capturing the essence of your loved ones — think about the little things that you’ll always remember, such as how they hold their favorite coffee mug in their hands!

Do you wish you had images of your loved ones that capture who they are as a person? What about a series of images that portray your life as nicely as a wedding photographer portrays a wedding?

Get ready to have fun creating lifestyle photos that you can’t wait to share with your friends and family.

This course delves into creative ways to capture even mundane moments and beautifully photograph even camera-shy loved ones. They’ll finally stop saying they don’t like seeing themselves in photos!

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