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How to focus stack landscape photos in Photoshop

“One of the most appealing attributes of landscape photographs is sharpness from front to back. Everything is in sharp focus in the foreground, middle, and background, allowing the viewer to be pulled into the image as if they were standing right there.” – Max Foster

Generally speaking, sharpness throughout the image, that is from foreground to background, is far easier to achieve with an ultra-wide-angle lens (UWA) than with a tele.  However, even wide-angle lenses have their limitations. If you place a UWA lens only a few centimeters from the foreground object, you can get it in focus. The background, however, will fall outside the depth of field and be blurred. The same goes if you focus on a very far object.

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The winners of the world’s largest photo contest: Wiki Loves Monuments

Wiki Loves Monuments is the world largest photography competition. Wikimedia states, “It’s also a platform for global collaboration in making beautiful, significant photos of monuments freely available to anyone, anywhere.” When photographers join the competition they simultaneously donate their images to Wikimedia Commons, “the free repository that holds most of the images used on Wikipedia, to ensure that the world’s most visible cultural heritage is documented and held in trust for future generations.”

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The winners of Flickr’s Best Shot 2019 are absolute stunners

More than 17,000 photos were submitted to Flickr’s contest. The five winners received a $200 gift card from Blurb each. This isn’t a lot of prize, but there is quite a bit of bragging rights involved, I guess. Flickr invited five photographers from the community to assist with the nominations and appointed three in-house judges from Flickr staff to select the winning images.

There are a host of very talented photographers on Flickr. The five winning images showcase some of the diversity uploaded to the platform. The judges have exemplary carried out their duties and awarded five deserving winners of the competition. One thing is for sure, it cannot have been easy to pick out the winners among the many submissions. Here are the winners:

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How I shot the weekend’s Supermoon in Antarctica

Shayne McGuire captured the Snow Moon in Antarctica this weekend. The name ‘Snow Moon’ has its origin from Native American tribes. Yesterday evening she experienced that everything lined perfectly up. In addition, the moon took on a beautiful red color tone as it hovered above the horizon.

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Here is when you should use filters instead of Photoshop

As a landscape photographer, I find it both a convenience and an inconvenience to use filters. For example, using filters for balancing light in a scene,  eliminates the need for bracketed shooting. This saves space on my memory card and on my hard drive. On the other hand, sometimes things happen so fast that mounting filters spoils the moment. There are also instances when using a filter to smooth the water in a waterfall will save me from blending exposures in Photoshop. On the negative side, adding filters to the backpack takes up space and adds weight.

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How to double process a Milky Way image

From the middle of August, it is dark enough for night photography here in the southern parts of Norway. The milky way season lasts to approximately December this far north. I try to head out as often as I can when there is no moon and the forecast predicts a clear sky.

It is always a delight to see the milky way in-camera, but bringing it out in post can often be challenging. One of the key challenges is that the night sky requires quite a different approach than the ground.

When it is very dark I prefer to shoot a few extra very long exposures for the ground to make sure I have enough shadow detail to work with.

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This landscape photographer paints stunning images with light

Mike Muizebelt is a Holland-based photographer, who among other things, is known for his diversity with subject matter. His most common subjects are animals and landscapes, and he is hitting it hard with light painting as well. To paint with light as Mike does requires both a fine-tuned technique and the right gear.

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Why I have stopped selling images with 500px

I just received three emails from 500px this evening. I was informed that three of my images were sold.

In other words, I can expect a payment of $2.55. In all honesty, it feels like a mockery.

When 500px launched Marketplace in 2014 we photographers could receive a 70% commission if 500px was our sole licensing agent for a particular image. Back then it was actually possible to get a decent payment if you sold a few images.

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Hands on with the Samyang AF 18mm f/2.8 FE for landscape photography

Samyang has won themselves a reputation for manufacturing sharp and budget-friendly lenses. Their first offerings were pure manual, like the now renowned Samyang 14mm f/2.8. A lens that swiftly became a favorite among nightscape photographers. The lens is sharp, lightweight, cheap, and it yields great stars with little to no coma (comet-like distortion). Now comes the newer, autofocus, Samyang AF 18mm f/2.8 FE.

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Photographer captures the aurora from his plane seat

Rajesh Jyothiswara tells DIYP that he for a few years has tried to capture the northern lights from a plane. High above the clouds covering Greenland he finally succeeded. Rajesh adds that getting a suitable window seat is mandatory in order to capture the aurora from a plane.

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