Olympus OM-D E-M5 Review:Four thirds (17.3x13mm) sensor 16.1 million effective pixels with 4608x3456-pixel output Weather...
Category: Tools for Nature and Landscape Photography
Headlight
An LED headlight is a great tool for illuminating scenes without using your hands. These lights are made to fit over your head with an attached strap. That’s what makes them excellent companions on a nature or landscape photo shoot, because if you are passionate about your outdoors photography, you may well find yourself outdoors [...]
Moisture-Absorbing Packets
If you rummage through your medicine cabinet, or open a package of just about anything new, chances are you’ll find small moisture-absorbing packets (also known as des-iccant). These packets help keep pills and other medicines dry, as well as suck moisture out of the air within product and clothing packaging. These packets can help keep [...]
Polarized Sunglass Lens
A simple polarizer filter can be made from a spare polarized sunglass lens. The lens I carry in my little family point-and-shoot bag is from a pair of sunglasses from which I swapped lenses for prescription lenses. If you ever turn store-bought sunglasses into prescription sunglasses, make sure to ask for the original lenses back [...]
Quiver
Without making puns about shooting, a quiver is a standard tool in archery that can also be a handy tool for nature photographers traveling light and carrying a small tripod. A quiver is essentially a sleeve made to hold arrows. That means it is long and designed to hang over a shoulder or from a [...]
Beach Wind Screen
While on the subject of saltwater, a beach windscreen makes a great all-purpose wind protector when photographing outdoors. One of the challenges with outdoors photography is that high winds shake cameras and tripods, causing motion blur. That’s where a beach wind screen can help protect your camera from movement, and protect the photographer as well, [...]
Tripod Leg Covers
When you are in the field for nature and landscape photography, you often need to protect your tripod from moisture. You might be photographing near water and have to place the tripod in wet sand or moist earth. Or to capture a rare flower or bird, you might need to put on muck boots and [...]
Poncho
I’ve been a fan of ponchos since my college days, but became an avid fan of the poncho as a great outdoors photo tool when trekking in the foothills of the Himalayas and packing as lightly, and for as many weather conditions, as possible. In the small pack I carried on that long journey, I [...]
Plastic Bag Rain Shield
I was shown this trick for protecting a camera from rain while teaching a workshop in Maine. My excellent teaching assistant, Andy, helped my students as some rain set on us during an outdoor photo shoot. Prepared for the worst, he pulled plastic shopping bags from his rucksack, cut holes the size of the student [...]
Viewing Tube
Modern digital cameras have amazing LCD displays (the liquid crystal display that previews captures on the back of a camera). Even older digital cameras have very nice displays on the back of the camera. These displays have become sharper and brighter as digital camera technology, and display technology, develops. If you are indoors taking pictures, [...]
Potable Aqua
Whether you are trekking in the Himalayas or hiking in the Appalachians, having potable drinking water will be a grave concern. I used Potable Aqua tablets over 30 years ago on an expedition, to turn river water into safe drinking water. It worked then, and I’m pleased to see that it is still available as [...]
