- The Secret to Shooting Sunsets
- Cutting Reflections in Water
- For Landscapes, You Need a Clear Subject
- Using Your LCD Monitor Outdoors
- A Trick for Shooting Great Rainbows
- A Timesaving Pano Trick
- The Trick for Using a Fisheye Lens
- When to Shoot Streams
- Don't Stop Shooting at Sunset
- How to Shoot Fog
- Getting Shots of Lightning (Manually)
- Getting Shots of Lightning (Automatically)
- Where to Focus for Landscape Shots
- Find the Great Light First
- How to Shoot on a Gray, Overcast Day
- A Trick for Great-Looking Flower Shots
- The Full-Frame Camera Advantage
- The Seven Deadly Sins of Landscape Photography
- Landscape Sin #1: Choppy Water
- Landscape Sin #2: Frozen Water in Waterfalls
- Landscape Sin #3: Bald, Cloudless Skies
- Landscape Sin #4: Harsh, Midday Sun
- Landscape Sin #5: A Crooked Horizon Line
- Landscape Sin #6: Distracting Junk Near Edge
- Landscape Sin #7: No Foreground Object
- And...Dead Trees and Tree Stumps...And...
Landscape Sin #1: Choppy Water
When we’re shooting a lake or a cozy harbor, what we’re looking for is that still, glassy water that creates a beautiful reflection. So, if you hike up to that beautiful lake with the snow-capped mountains off in the distance, but it’s windy out that day and the lake looks more like the ocean...just keep walking. That’s right, keep walking back to your car, drive back to your hotel, and try again the next morning at dawn. Dawn is your absolute best chance for having calm, still water (by mid-morning it’s usually too late), and it’s worth getting up early for (not to mention the quality of the light), because choppy water is instant death to lake and harbor shots. By the way, that telephone pole lookin’ log there on the left isn’t helping this photo much either.