10 popular creative photo effects (and how to achieve them)

Another excellent tutorial from Digital Camera World

How to shoot a starlight landscape

Shooting at night has been a technique that many photographers have used to give their landscapes and cityscapes an otherworldly appearance.

But it has usually involved very long exposures, leading to star trails or light trails. The improved high ISO performance of modern digital SLRs means that it’s possible to get amazing results without resorting to long exposures, keeping the stars and other moving objects sharp.

Skills involved
Shooting in the dark makes it tricky to focus and frame your shot accurately, so you’ll need to practise these skills before you head out to shoot starscapes.

Switching your camera to manual focus and using Live View can help, as it’s often possible to see the subject more clearly than by using the viewfinder. Use the Manual exposure mode.

Take some test shots to arrive at the best settings to use for your shots, as the brightness of the stars and the amount of light pollution will vary in different locations.

The technique
To capture the best starscapes you’ll need a completely clear sky, so check the weather forecast before heading out. It’s best if the moon isn’t visible: it can make it difficult to keep detail in the whole sky in a single exposure.

To keep the exposures short enough to prevent the moving stars blurring, set a high ISO such as 1,600 or 3,200. Even then, you’ll need a wide aperture: f/4 or even f/2.8.

This means it’s almost impossible to keep both the stars and any foreground subject in focus in a single shot. Shoot two exposures, one focused on the stars and one on the foreground, then combine them in Photoshop.

Creative photo effects: 01 Use perspective to fool the viewer
Creative photo effects: 02 How to make a spherical panorama in minutes
Creative Photo Effects: 03 How to capture motion blur without using a tripod
Creative Photo Effects: 04 Capture great bokeh with ease
Creative Photo Effects: 05 Replicate a tilt-shift effect
Creative Photo Effects: 06 Use lens flare creatively
Creative Photo Effects: 07 How to underexpose the background for dramatic effect
Creative Photo Effects: 08 How to make realistic HDR

Landscape Photography For the Serious Amateur

This really interesting article is By Chris Gin on Lightstalking

This is a guest post by New Zealand landscape photographer, Chris Gin. Some of you might recognise images from Chris’ Flickr stream that we have used in our collections before.

“I’ve been into landscape photography for a couple of years now. It’s a fantastic hobby and hugely rewarding, but also has a bit of a learning curve. While I would not consider myself anywhere near a pro at this stage, I’ve picked up on a few useful things here and there. Below are some tips which I hope others who are just starting out in the world of landscape photography will find useful.”

• Avoid clutter. Only include things in the frame that you want to present to the viewer. The best photos are clean and simple. If there are unwanted items in the way, such as power poles, cars, roads, buildings etc, try a different angle to hide them from view. Small things can be cloned out in post-processing but larger items will just distract the viewer.”

More Here: Landscape Photography For the Serious Amateur

Click Here: Landscape Photography For the Serious Amateur

Really astonishing landscape pictures by Christian Klepp

“Geoscientist and photographer Christian Klepp runs this website project to document nature’s beauty. The aim is to increase public awareness of the earth system, so that people can develop a clearer understanding of the planet. Over 200 images of spectacular landscapes accompanied by scientific explanations illustrate the perpetual change of our planet through the eons of time. ”

This website is crammed with the most amazing images, even in landscape photography leaves you cold you need to have a look at this site

Photography Subjects: Landscapes

This is a very nice article by Christopher O’Donnell on the rather excellent Photo Argus site and one well worth bookmarking.

“The subjects of landscape photography are vast and wide – and can be interpreted in many different ways. Rather than go into the specific subjects most commonly used (i.e. lakes, mountains) – I want to talk about the bigger picture – what elements make a successful landscape photo. This will help turn whatever environment you’re in – from the desert to the mountains – into a limitless canvas for your landscape images”.…more

Nate Zeman Landscape Photographer

A student on one of our courses alerted me to the utterly fantastic landscape images of Nate Zeman. His images prove the point that more than anything the quality of light makes a brilliant photograph. His website has a wide range of landscapes and images of animals that are available to purchase. If you like landscapes then you really should visit his site

We cover some aspects of landscape and wildlife photography in our Travel Photography course starting 9th June

4 Rules of Composition for Landscape Photography

Here’s four ‘rules’ for landscape photography that might be helpful……more from those nice people at Digital Photo School

14 Essential Landscape Photography Tutorials

The theme of landscape photography repeatedly shows up in the most popular posts on Light Stalking and if the proliferation of websites and magazines specifically about landscape is anything to go by, then it is very popular among the wider photography community too. Getting started in landscape need not be a huge exercise – there are literally hundreds of fantastic tutorials available for free online. Here are some…….