OP Editorial Blog
Our weekly editorial from OP's editors, columnists and contributors
Perfect White Balance
Lens Cap That Customizes Any Scene
Monday, January 5, 2009
 Finding the right color temperature can often be tricky when using today’s D-SLRs, and relying solely on auto white balance can sometimes give you an inaccurate reading. Using custom white balance will make your colors more predictable and make the nature shooting experience better if you can capture a precise reading when you're out in the field.
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Megapixel Urban Legends
Image Quality Trumps Resolution
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
 You will hear a lot of “stuff” about megapixels, especially about what pros use for publications. There are a whole lot of “urban legends” around that both photographers and editors believe, that might not be true, but do affect the industry. While some pros go to larger megapixel cameras because they think that gives more image quality (it doesn’t automatically do that), many are interested in the added features that these cameras introduce, such as better autofocus or wireless flash capabilities or advanced internal processing, and so forth.
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Exploring Kashmir
John Isaac Tears Down the Veil
Monday, December 22, 2008
 The Indian and Pakistan dispute over the Kashmir region has caused a lot of rifts and violence between these countries for years. Most recently the Indian government accused a Kashmiri terrorist group for the deadly attacks in Mumbai that took place this November, adding a new level of intense relations between the two nations.
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A Look Back
NANPA’s 15th Annual Summit & Trade Show
Friday, December 19, 2008
 We posted a blog last week mentioning our intentions to bring back popular entries every Friday. Today we thought it would be great to mention that NANPA’s 15th Annual Summit & Trade Show is coming up this February 18-22. The Summit & Trade Show will feature the best in nature photography and photographers, with presentations, workshops and reviews, and keynote speeches from Tim Laman, Norbert Rosing, Art Wolfe and Bill Fortney.
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Canon Responds To “Black Dots”
Addresses 5D Mark II Image Quality Issues
Friday, December 19, 2008
 Today Canon issued a “Safety Notice” involving two image quality concerns that have been found by users of the new EOS 5D Mark II D-SLR; including black dots that appear in point of light sources when shooting in low-light conditions and Vertical banding noise when recording in sRAW1 format.
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Zoom Effect
Creating Motion With Your Photos
Thursday, December 18, 2008
 Here’s a great Photoshop tutorial for those of you who want to add a zoom effect to your images. It can be achieved in two ways, in-camera with a slow shutter speed and a zoom lens or by adding one during image editing with a filter in Photoshop. Photoshopcafe.com posted a great step-by-step tutorial on how to create this blurring effect by using the Radial Blur filter.
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Mastering Photoshop
Keyboard Shortcuts to Maximize Your Time
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
 When I first started working with Photoshop, it always seemed to be a bit tedious to dive through menus to get to different tools, filters, etc. I found the key to maximizing my time while in Photoshop Creative Suite and Lightroom was to use keyboard shortcuts.
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Photoshop Lightroom 2.2
Adobe Releases Update With New Enhancements
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
 Here’s some good news for all you Lightroom users out there; this morning Adobe announced the availability of Photoshop Lightroom 2.2, and upgrade for existing users of Lightroom 2 for Mac and PC computers. It features camera support for new cameras like the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon PowerShot G10, Panasonic DMC-G1, Panasonic DMC-FX150, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, Panasonic DMC-LX3, Leica D-LUX 4, and some new enhancements including camera profiles now available in the Calibration panel in the Develop module, which is designed to provide different interpretations of raw capture.
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Nature Photographer iPhone App
Moose Peterson’s New Photography Tool
Monday, December 15, 2008
 Nature photographers are always looking for new tools to benefit their picture-taking process. This comes in many forms; including technique, intricate knowledge of locations and having the right gear, and Moose Peterson, a well-known pro who has always embraced technology, has found a great new photography tool for his iPhone, an App called Focalware, and posted a blog today on how he uses it, to read it click here.
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A Look Back
Revisiting Canon’s 5D Mark II
Friday, December 12, 2008
 The Outdoor Photographer blog has been daily for a few months now, and we thought it would be a great idea to start bringing back some of our most popular blog entries every Friday, just in case you didn’t get a chance the first time around.
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New Nikon?
Rumors About a Nikon D400
Thursday, December 11, 2008
 It’s always interesting to find rumors about possible D-SLRs, especially the next generation of a great camera like the Nikon D300. This week NikonRumors.com is reporting about the Nikon D400, which supposedly features a 14.3-megapixel resolution, HD video capture at 1080p, a burst mode of 7 fps, 14-bit A/D conversion, Multi-CAM3500DX Auto Focus sensor (51-point, 15 cross-type, more vertical coverage) and a magnesium alloy body with connections and buttons sealed against moisture.
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Boost Your Megapixels
Panoramic Stitching To Get Bigger Resolution
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
 Today on the Inside Lightroom blog, Jao van de Lagemaat wrote an interesting article on how to increase the resolution of your images by panoramic stitching. He was able to travel light with a small 6-megapixel D-SLR, a kit lens and no tripod, and was able to achieve the effect of a tilt-shift lens by combining multiple images. The key was to manually focus on each image so that he could achieve focus throughout the scene, allowing him to mimic how a tilt-shift can extend your depth of field on a landscape.
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Shooting the Heavens
Getting Started with Star Trail Photography
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
 Here in the pages of Outdoor Photographer magazine we have reproduced some of the best celestial photography available, showing the interplay of the Earth and beyond its borders. Some of the best photographers have been able to capture the star trail, a form of time-lapse photography that shows the revolution of the Earth with a static foreground and circular star movement in the background. Legendary photographers like David Muench and Art Wolfe have been able to conceptualize and capture these star trails, creating some of the most stunning and otherworldly photography.
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Is Digital Better than Film?
The Debate Continues…
Monday, December 8, 2008
 There seems to be an ongoing debate whether film is better than digital. It is true that digital photography is still in its infancy, and it has made leaps and bounds in the last few years, making it a valid contender when comparing these two separate methods of photography.
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Photoshop Sharpening
Understanding Unsharp Mask To Create Great Photos
Friday, December 5, 2008
 Any professional nature photographer will tell you, image editing is very subjective, making each edit a unique process of techniques, tricks and different nuances that transform a good image into an extraordinary one. The Unsharp Mask filter in Photoshop is a great tool to create the best level of sharpness in your photos, bringing out detail in areas of the image to accentuate the features of your subject. This powerful tool offers the outdoor photographer a great level of control when sharpening, and can be used to edit and create an image with great acutance.
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Alien Skin Software’s Bokeh
New Plug-in That Manipulates Focus
Thursday, December 4, 2008
 Bokeh is a new plug-in for Photoshop from Alien Skin Software that lets you simulate the effect of a tilt-shift/perspective control Lens or Lensbaby, allowing you manipulate the depth of field in your photos and isolate your subjects from the background.
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Panasonic DMC-G1
Our First Impressions and a Review by Luminous Landscape
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
 It is easy to be skeptical when you hear the term smaller interchangeable lens camera that is similar to a D-SLR -- but in actuality is not a D-SLR at all. When the Micro Four Thirds format was introduced this fall we waited until we got our hands on one to make a judgment.
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New Nikon Full-Frame
Nikon’s D3X D-SLR Just Announced!
Monday, December 1, 2008
 Nikon made a big splash yesterday with the unveiling of the D3X, their newest flagship full-frame FX-format D-SLR. The size of image sensor has doubled from the D3’s 12.1-megapixel sensor to 24.5-megapixel in the D3X. It will be interesting to see how well the D3X will stack up against the image quality and low-light performance the D3 has become known for.
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Canon EOS 5D Mark II
After a Long Wait, It’s Finally Shipping!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
 We have all been waiting on the successor to the Canon 5D, which became the first full-frame D-SLR to create a new pro camera class at a smaller cost than the 1D series. Well the wait was over a few months ago with the announcement of Canon EOS 5D Mark II, and the good news is, it’s finally shipping.
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New Adobe Updates
Just Released: Camera Raw 5.2 and DNG Converter 5.2
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
 Adobe Camera Raw 5.2 and DNG Converter 5.2 are available today as a free downloads for Photoshop CS4, Elements 7 and Premiere Elements 7. The Camera Raw 5.2 application features improvements like the Targeted Adjustment Tool (TAT) for on-image edits and refinements, output sharpening for print or screen output, ability to create a snapshot of all adjustments made to an image as a bookmark and Camera Profiles for enhanced raw file interpretation in the Calibration panel.
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