Tips, Tricks, and Forgotten Skills

What did you learn (or remember) in 2012 that relates to your photography? I've been kicking this around as a possible blog topic but I think it would be a fun thread here. I'll start:

Use a Polarizer when shooting foliage. I've known this for a long time but seem to have filed it away in the dark corners of my brain. I put this into practice on a trip to the PNW in 2012 and comparing those images to some I shot without a polarizer in 2008 in the same areas, it was the difference between night and day. Now if I can just remember this fall when I'm shooting fall colors....


I also admitted that my 2 generations old camera just wasn't adequate for night sky shooting. Sometimes it IS all about the gear.

So let's get going. What did you learn or remember this year?

I learned how to better and more effectively use some of the features built into my camera. They have carried over to the new camera, too. Sometimes it is about HOW to use the gear.

Let's see... I guess I learned that (with wide angle shots), one is not limited to shots taken at or above 2ft AGL, but has the freedom and opportunity to utilize extremely low angles to capture small areas of the ground in the landscape (2"-5" AGL) with a versatile tripod. That is were DOF blending comes in, and I give a big 'thank you' for the help I've received (and am receiving) on that from NPN...

Sort of goes along with what Bob said---"sometimes it is about HOW to use the gear"...

I finally learned a super easy technique for blending multiple exposures together for increased dynamic range. Been struggling with that one for quite some time and am thrilled to finally be able to add it to my digital darkroom repertoire.

I also learned that there's a lot to photograph around Moab.

I picked up focus stacking. And when to focus stack as opposed to when not to focus stack. Also certain kinds of foregrounds focus stack a lot better than others; I'll say that was a painful experience... Lastly I picked up how to better compose images to hand blend them to ultimately produce well exposed panos. Certain scenes are tough to blend. If that scene is part of the pano, do yourself a favor and compose your frames where you only have to hand blend that challenging scene once. And not hand have to hand blend that scene a second time with the image your gonna stitch it with. Seems common sense but it's stuff like that you won't think about until your post processing. I do think there is a trick to it.

Don't nearly kill yourself in a car wreck.

I've learned that a CLEAN sensor is wonderful!!

Single RAW processing with Nik Efex HDR Pro. No doubt a 14 bit RAW image has a lot of data to play with. That said I will continue to whine about how $1,000-2000 cameras can't capture better dynamic range.

A started manually blending for depth of field. After the Moab event and Bill's presentation on focal blending, I purchased Zerene.
I have been thinking how one would go about combining focal and exposure images in making a pano, like for example Mesa Arch.

Blending for optimum depth of field was far and away the best thing that I learned. A real revolution in photography, IMO. No more 'perceived' sharpness, but real sharpness from fore to aft. And best of all, it didn't cost me a dime!
Two pieces of relatively inexpensive gear were some of my best investments to date. The ThermaRest Seat Pad has been a real help when shooting in a kneeling position and for keeping my pack dry and clean in wet/dirty conditions.
The Rokinon 14mm f2.8 (manual everything) lens rivals much more expensive wide angle lenses from Canon and Nikon in image quality at a fraction of the cost. Perfect for 'starscapes', and it's often on sale for $299, which made it an easy purchase for me.

Finally diving into Tony Kuyper's arsenal of wizardry. Thanks, TK!