my travels in pixels

f/13, 1/4s, 63mm, ISO160 Most of my favourite photographs are ones that have been taken in low light or at night. While I don't profess to be an expert. This is what I do: What you will need: a camera, in this case I am using a DSLR with a lens hood (to block out any side on lights) a tripod or wall a remote shutter release or you can use your camera's 2s self timer Settings: It is all about getting the right amount of light into your sensor. You will use time, the size of the aperture and ISO to get it right. ISO: 100-160 Mode: M for manual Aperture: decide on the amount of depth of field you want. If you want the subject in focus and the background blurry - go wide such as f/2.8. If you want everything in focus somewhere between f/8-f/13. Anything aperture smaller than f/13 will make the lights sparkle. These are the higher numbers, yes its confusing. Think of it like this: the higher the number you go, the smaller the hole becomes and the less...

Long Exposure All long exposure photography needs some way of reducing the light which is where neutral density filters come in. Types of long exposure photography Waterfalls - to make the water silky Seascapes - to make the water frothy and silky Clouds - to make the clouds streak across the sky Removing people - to remove tourists who walk through your photo (and hope they keep walking!) Neutral Density Filters At first I used my circular polarizer on my waterfalls, but often this wasn't enough as it only reduces 1.5 to 2 stops and I still had to use f/22. The proper filters to use are Neutral Density Filters. These are rated by the number of stops of light that they cut out - 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10. So which one or ones do you buy? That was my big question last year along with, which brand was best. The first one I bought was a 0.9 (3-stop) which was great for doing waterfalls that didn't have too much sun on the water. Then as I progressed I wanted to us...

Secure Internet Using public WiFi for banking or opening your password manager is not a good idea. What you need is a VPN - a virtual private network, like  Tunnel Bear . With the free version, you get 500mb free each month which is plenty if you only use it for banking. All you do is select the country you are in, there are many to choose from and click it to "on". Wait for it to log on and it will let you know when it is safe to start surfing in private. You can then open your password manager and banking websites. Just remember to turn it off when you have finished your banking or closed your password manager, or you will use up your quota. Password Manager When every website requires a different set of rules for making passwords it becomes impossible to remember them all. A password manager means you don't have to write all your usernames and passwords in a file or book. The main programs that are usually recommended are:  1Password , LastPass and Dashlane  - ...

I shoot my photos in RAW which means I have to process the photos myself. If you shoot in Jpeg, the camera does it for you, but you have less control over the end result. One of my photography friends kept at me for years for not using Lightroom, so I downloaded a trial copy, had a look, got despondent and let it lapse. It's not intuitive and I gave up. Serge Ramelli's picture of La Conciergerie in Paris I was quite happy using Camera RAW which comes with Photoshop but felt that my pictures were lacking compared to my peers and to my friend who wanted me to switch to Lightroom. The only difference I could put this down to was Lightroom. So I had another go. This time I did some training videos on Lynda.com which gave me a comprehensive understanding of the library and what each part was but I was still having trouble relating it to the pictures that I took. Somehow I found Serge Ramelli. He makes it so easy to understand; talking and showing you what to do....

We were going to fill up with water when we arrived at Oregon Inlet but we couldn't find the dump station, it turns out, it's down the road at the marina. We decided to set up camp without filling up. We had enough to get by but not enough for showers. So we resorted to our solution that we use camping in the bush at home. Fill a bucket with water, from a tap or the river.  Pour some of the water into a kettle and boil it on the stove or fire.  When hot, tip it back into the bucket, and mix it in. Repeat the previous two steps until the water is the right temperature. It usually only takes two kettles.  Take it into the shower and use a small saucepan with a side handle to pour the warm water over yourself. In the bush we use a 12V shower, the pump sits in the bucket and the showerhead fits onto a shower tent or a window on the car Of course there are times when you have no water except for drinking and cooking, like when we travel for a week or two acro...

medium cube Packing Cubes I’ve often wondered how some people manage to travel with just a carry on – I think part of their secret must be packing cubes. Why are they so good? You will be amazed how much more you can fit into your suitcase using these cubes. They are made of lightweight material with mesh tops, so you can see what is inside them, but don’t add much weight to your overall luggage. An added bonus is that you don’t mess up your packing when you are just trying to get one item out. Some people have one cube for “bottoms”, one for “tops” and one for “underwear”. Others put whole outfits for each day in a separate cube if they are going away for a short time, so they only have to open one cube a day. There is a label when you buy them that says “Beware: Packing cubes can be addictive”. I don’t doubt it! Where do I buy them? I bought the eBags brand from Amazon as they had good reviews and use YKK zippers which are the best there is. They come in dif...

Controlling your data When you are on the road you don’t have the luxury of large amounts of data at a home plan rate. Wireless data is expensive whatever country you are in, and the USA is no different. When we came into the USA a few months ago, we blew out our data plan four times! Unlike home plans, they don’t just throttle you back - they give you another gig and charge you double than if you had included it in your plan, and when you’ve used that they give you another one. We thought we were being very careful, and while it has never been this bad, it has happened before. So it was time to find some answers and fix the problem! Fixing the problem Firstly I went into my System Preferences on my Mac and then: Under Notifications - I turned off all notifications on every application, except Tunnel Bear. I use Tunnel Bear on my laptop to make a secure connection for banking or accessing my passwords when I’m using a public WiFi. You need to know when the line is secure, so...

What do you do when you run out of space for Lightroom New laptops that have SSD's are fast but on the downside their storage space is small. So what do you do when you run out of disk space for all your RAW files that take up so much room? Or what if you use two computers and want to be able to work on your photos on both machines? Answer : You work off a portable hard drive. Sounds good, but how do you do it? RAW files are pretty big, so to reduce them a little and to ensure future compatibility - I convert them to DNG's - Adobe's Digital Negative. The program to do this is free and available from Adobe's website. How to Export a catalog and photos If you already have a catalog and photos on your computer's hard drive you will need to export the catalog and photos to your external portable hard drive. The following instructions are for a Mac, but you should get the general idea to be able to work it out in Windows. You might want to consider creating a n...

Why is shooting wildlife different to say landscape? Because they move and there is often not much light as the best times to shoot are just after sunrise and just before sunset. When we came to Yellowstone for the first time we had no idea how to photograph wildlife. I was still photographing in P mode most of the time which works fine if there is plenty of light and your subject isn't moving. I would change to shutter priority to slow the water down for waterfalls and again to freeze anything taken out of a helicopter. I couldn't get enough light and I couldn't get a sharp picture. I tried shutter priority on animals but the pictures were just too dark. There are a number of ways to get a good photograph, you just need to find what works for you. When shooting something that is moving you need to freeze the action, so you would naturally think to use shutter-priority and let the camera work out the aperture, not so. Light is a very important consideration which is...

You've taken some photos, now what? Adobe Lightroom is a lot cheaper and less complicated than Photoshop and will give you great results. I put off changing from Camera RAW to Lightroom for years, I am so glad I changed. I still find Photoshop better for cloning and removing unwanted items, but the majority of work can be done in Lightroom. A great learning tool are You Tube clips. Just type in what you want to know e.g. Lightroom catalog. You will learn a lot. The Catalog The hardest thing to come to terms with is the Catalog - it is where all the information regarding your changes are held. The Catalog files are located under Pictures/Lightroom and will start with the words: Lightroom 5 Catalog unless you have given it a unique name. The first task is to import your pictures. When you open Lightroom, click the Library tab. Then click the Import button at the bottom left hand side of the screen or choose file/import photos or videos. From Then you need to work thr...

We all speak the same language or do we? Over the past few years I have put together some uniquely American words with the Australian equivalent or if we don't have one, with the meaning of what they are talking about. I have also included just some differences between the countries that you might find interesting, you really can turn against a red light! Some time I might do a list of Australian words that Americans find completely foreign. People often smile but have a blank look on their face, so you know, they either can't understand our accent or have no idea about what we are talking about, but are too polite to say anything. We have a terrible habit of shortening things - arvo just means afternoon. Can you add to my list? USA Aussie  # is called a  pound  key # is called a  hash  key 4 way stop signs, first person at intersection goes first, then second  etc Stop signs on only one road of cross road or T intersection 401k Sup...