In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog

New eBook: Exposure for Outdoor Photography

by Michael Frye | Feb 16, 2012 | Announcements, Photography Tips

Exposure for Outdoor Photogoraphy

I’m pleased to announce the release of my second ebook: Exposure for Outdoor Photography.

In photography, creativity and technical skill are both essential. It’s great to have a wonderful eye and imagination, but no one will appreciate your genius if your images are washed out and blurry.

The most essential technical skill a photographer must master is exposure. On the surface, exposure seems easy. It’s simply a matter of making the image bright enough—not too dark, and not too light. But the endless variety of light makes exposure challenging. No two situations are the same, so there can be no exact formula for getting the right exposure. On the other hand, exposure doesn’t need to be overly complicated. The fundamental controls—shutter speed, aperture, ISO, light meters—are easy to understand.

Previously on this blog I’ve written about some of these fundamentals, like reading histograms and adjusting exposure. In this ebook I start with a more comprehensive discussion of these essentials, then go deeper by taking you through ten practical, real-life examples where I’ve used these basic principles to control the exposure, the sharpness, and the photograph’s message.

The examples go from easy to complex, and include using a histogram to find the right exposure, controlling depth of field, freezing and blurring motion, when to push the ISO, spot metering and the Zone System, and HDR and exposure blending. I also include several exercises to help improve your technique. It’s a concise, easy to understand, yet comprehensive course in mastering the most important skill in photography.

Like all Craft & Vision ebooks, Exposure for Outdoor Photography is normally only five dollars. But for the next four days you can get it for only four dollars. Just use the code EXPOSURE4 at checkout. Or use the code EXPOSURE20 to get 20 percent off if you buy five or more Craft & Vision ebooks—including my previous volume, Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom.

Exposure for Outdoor Photography is temporarily unavailable. Stay tuned for updates on a revised version.

—Michael Frye

Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBook Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom. He has written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.

Winter Pilgrimage

by Michael Frye | Feb 13, 2012 | Wildlife Photography

1. Ross's geese taking flight in the fog

I’ve had a love affair and obsession with snow geese, along with their close cousins Ross’s geese, for 25 years. Watching a large flock of these birds take flight, filling the sky from horizon to horizon while deafening your ears with their calls, is an unforgettable, transcendent experience.

I’ve photographed these birds in every way imaginable over the years. You can see more images of them in my album of bird photographs on Google+, including some deliberate blurs, and a flash-blur. Last Wednesday and Thursday Claudia and I drove down to the San Joaquin Valley once again to photograph birds. This time I focused on capturing ethereal images of geese in the fog, and tried looking straight into the late-afternoon sun. I’ve included some notes on the accompanying photos a little further down.

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February in Yosemite

by Michael Frye | Feb 12, 2012 | Yosemite Photo Conditions

February light on Bridalveil Fall from near Turtleback Dome

First, I’m going to have a big announcement later this week—stay tuned!

Next, I’ve been getting lots of questions about Horsetail Fall. Since my last post about this not much has changed; there is little water in Horsetail right now. There’s snow in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow, so that should help, but they’re only predicting 6-8 inches, and I don’t know whether that will be enough to make a significant difference. If the weather warms immediately afterward and melts some of that new snow the water volume could get a bump, but it’s likely to be short-lived.

But there are other things to photograph in Yosemite in February. That storm is predicted to be a cold one, which means fresh snow in Yosemite Valley. And when the storm ends we could see some nice clearing storm conditions.

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