Good resources for getting started in advanced (outdoor) photography?

[DSettahr]

Can anyone recommend any good websites or resources that introduce one to advanced photography techniques, particularly outdoor and nature photography?

After my old camera (and old Nikon point and shoot) died, I upgraded to a nice camera that gives me a lot more control over my photos (a Nikon P7000). I have somewhat of a basic understanding over what all the functions are, but I'd really like a great resource that explain in depth how to use them, and suggest settings for different conditions, particularly in the outdoors.

Thanks in advance!

 

[David Metsky]

Understanding Exposure is a great way to learn about the most important parts of photography. There is an online course taught from this book but it's fairly expensive.

Read the book, read your owners manual, and shoot, shoot, shoot.

 

[MichaelJ]

One of the best aspects of modern digital photography is that all your shot settings are stored with every image. The other great aspect is that it costs no extra money to shoot a hundred shots vs. one.

Take many photos of the same scene with different settings. When you get home and transfer the photos to your computer, you can see each one's settings (in what's called the EXIF data) and how it affected the resulting image.

Learn from the 'net or your camera manual about (but not limited to) these concepts: depth of field, its relation to aperture, what shutter speeds stop motion vs. blurring it, what shutter speeds are too slow for handheld, white balance, exposure bracketing, and the tradeoff of high ISO (sensitivity) vs. noise. Then as Dave said, shoot, shoot, shoot and see how they come out!

 

[Mohamed Ellozy]

I wonder if this should not be moved to General Backcountry, we have many members who care about photography but do not follow Exposure and who would benefit from this thread.

Going further along this line of thought: Given the extremely low volume on Exposure, is there any reason to keep it separate from General Backcountry? Few of the posts are technical enough to turn off general readers who take photos.

 

[Mohamed Ellozy]

I asked the same question almost a year ago and got lots of useful suggestions: Photography courses/books/resources.

 

[JohnL]

In addition to the books I recommended in the thread from Mohamed's link above, I would also mention Harold Davis' book Creative Landscapes. While some photo books try to pass themselves off as "Hot To" books but are really just a bunch of pretty pictures, Harold's book is full of clear examples of specific principles of landscape photography though they are not necessarily really nice pretty scenics. Knowing the principles that are the building blocks of good photos will enable you to recognize those principles in other people's photos and your own.

If you have your photos on a photo-sharing website, scour other people's photos who take like minded photos as you. As Yogi said "You can observe a lot just by watching."

Also go to amazon.com and do a search in Books on Nikon P7000 and buy one of the guides. They not only tell you what the buttons on your camera do, they will show you examples of how to use those buttons to your advantage. Your Nikon guide won't do that.

JohnL

 

[DougPaul]

There is lots of good stuff at http://www.luminous-landscape.com, particularly the tutorials: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/.

Many (most?) websites focus on hardware and software, but if you want to take good pictures, artistry comes first, hardware and software second.

Doug

 

[Billy]

I'll second David's recommendation for "Understanding Exposure". Excellent book.