‘Guides’ Category
If Your Camera Were a Person It Would Be Legally Blind
Did you know our cameras can only see about 1% of the light information our eyes can gather? It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. Look at this recent picture from Chicago: the sky behind the Trump Tower (center) is totally blown out, yet the building on the left is completely black with no details to [...]
Instagram… in Real Life
This is Gracie. She’s my family dog, and this is her “portrait”. The picture’s out of focus, the colors are horrible, and yet something about this picture screams awesome. It’s awesome because it’s real. No Instagram, no batteries, memory cards or digital cameras, and not much in the way of photoshop, either. In fact there’s [...]
Getting Your Start in Travel Photography
Taking a big trip soon? In the market for a new camera? A lot of people start seriously considering buying their first “real” camera before they take their first major trip. They want quality, memories, and lots of good pictures. There’s no upper limit to what you can spend in photography, and it’s easy to [...]
Free eBook! The Polar Route’s Complete Guide to Shooting and Editing Photos
I’ve been wanting to put an ebook together since I started The Polar Route, and as of today it’s finally finished! The book’s all about taking good pictures from the moment you grab your camera to head out until the moment you finish editing those shots on your computer. I’ve tried to write the book [...]
Shooting and Editing Photos Part 7: HDR Photos with Moving Subjects
This is an HDR photograph edited using the techniques described in this guide. This photo was a challenge to edit because of the moving cars – you can’t combine three pictures worth of moving objects and have everything come out looking good. Here’s what the cars looked like immediately after I ran Photomatix to combine [...]
Shooting and Editing Photos Part 6: Useful Photoshop Hints
Part 5 was a comprehensive look at using Photoshop to edit your photos. All you ever really need to know is in that section, but if you’re just craving more… well you got it! In this section, I’ll talk about some more useful Photoshop techniques: Shadows / Highlights Adjustment The difference between the Clone Tool [...]
Shooting and Editing Photos Part 5: A Comprehensive Photoshop Guide
Photoshop is powerful, and there’s no limit to what you can do with a photo with the right know how. All that photo editing power means Photoshop can be pretty complex, but I’ll show you how to simplify things. Before we go further, I always try to keep these two concepts in mind: Have an [...]
Shooting and Editing Photos Part 4: Finding Realism with HDR Editing
The above photo is a 3 exposure HDR photograph put together in Photomatix and edited in Photoshop. The exposures were captured as described in Part 2, and the files were saved as described in Part 3. Maybe you’ll disagree, but to my eye the photo above looks completely real. For comparison’s sake here’s the original, [...]
Don’t Baby Your Camera!
Cameras don’t need to be coddled. Your camera is a well constructed tool that’s built to take a beating. The more relaxed you are about your gear, the better pictures you’ll take. After all, the real beauty of a camera is found in the pictures you produce with it. Think of the stereotypical camera toting [...]
Shooting and Editing Photos Part 3: Editing Styles and Preparing Your Files
Shooting captures the moment. Editing recreates the feel These pictures of Shanghai were captured about a year ago. I was pretty jetlagged thanks to the 10 hour time zone difference, and I figured I’d have a better time exploring The Bund at sunrise rather than sleeplessly staring at the ceiling of my hostel. I’m glad [...]