The beauty of the "yellow season" in Northwest Vietnam at Hang Dang De village

Ngây ngất với mùa vàng Tây Bắc ở Háng Đăng Dê

Vượt qua những con đường đất trơn chuội, bạn sẽ bắt gặp tại Háng Đăng Dê một màu vàng khiên cánh nhiếp ảnh say mắt, dân phượt mê mẩn và niềm mơ ước được ngắm tận mắt của rất nhiều người...

Passing the slippery dirt roads, you will see a yellow color at Hang Dang De village, a yellow color that makes photographers passionate, enthralled, and many people's dreams of coming here ...

Những nẻo đường Tây Bắc hẻo lánh xa xôi xưa kia mấy ai không có dịp tới vì phải di chuyển trên những cung đường rất hiểm trở, vượt thác, băng đèo, trèo núi… mà bây giờ đã là những điểm du lịch nổi tiếng thế giới.

Not many people has been to the remote and isolated Northwest - Vietnam because of its dangerous with very high, steep mountain... However, it becomes a famous tourist destinations in the world recently thanks to better traffic.

Sự phát triển kinh tế, giao thông miền núi nói riêng tuy chưa được đầy đủ nhưng là một thành tựu lớn và cùng với du lịch, nhiếp ảnh đã mang khách tới những vùng Tây Bắc hẻo lánh, hiểm trở.

The economic development and transportation in this mountainous area are not convenient yet. But in recent years, along with tourism, photography has brought tourists to the remote and rugged Northwest regions. 

How to Use Juxtaposition for More Compelling Landscape Photography

Juxtaposition – it’s one of my favorite words, and also one of the most important aspects of successful photography. It’s used in portraiture, outdoor adventure, and frequently in travel photography. In images of the landscape, however, juxtaposition is often overlooked.

I say overlooked because many photographers integrate juxtaposed elements in their landscapes without even being aware of them. You see, juxtaposition, or the way different elements conflict and contrast, is a key feature in most good landscape photographs.

Though there are a dozen or more different ways juxtaposition can occur in an image, in this article I’m going to concentrate on three; color, texture, and subject matter.

5 Simple Techniques for Leading the Viewer’s Eye in Your Images

As photographers, it’s easy for us to make conscious composition choices that allow us to balance our photographs or to create harmony within them. It’s is more difficult however to try and lead viewers through your photographs. We rarely consider how to influence the viewers of our photographs. When composing images, we don’t think about the different elements in our images and the order by which we want viewers to see those elements.

This is a common tactic in classic painting, but not used readily by photographers. The reality is it’s hard to influence viewers and to dictate the ways in which they view our photographs.

The lines of the creek lead the viewer’s eye through and into the image.

5 Composition Tips for Landscape Photography

So what exactly is composition in photography and why is it such a big deal? Composition is the way you intentionally arrange or put together the visual elements in an image, in and around your subject. The goal is to catch the viewer’s interest and keep it wandering around your photo. While some people have an innate ability to “see” and compose great images, it is a skill that can be taught.

Once you have identified your subject, here are a few useful precepts you can use when composing your next great image.

1. Simplicity

Now that you have your subject in mind, the first question is how do you showcase it so there is no doubt of your intent? Keeping it simple is a good approach, as clutter can distract or even make it difficult to identify your focus.

Most times in landscape photography, you have no control over what is around your subject. Here, the use of lighting can reduce clutter, as the brighter areas of your photo will draw the eye to them. You can also find an angle that helps you remove any strong elements that can detract the focus of the object. Thus use only what you consider necessary components.

Good composition is as much about what you leave out as it is what you include.

6 Reasons Why Your Travel Photos Don’t Look the Ones in Magazines

Have you ever looked at your travel photos from somewhere and thought that they didn’t do that place, or your experience there, justice? It’s one of the big frustrations that newbie travel photographers face, that they feel their photos don’t look as good as the ones in travel brochures or magazines. Travel photography is a rewarding hobby or profession but it’s also challenging. Here are six reasons why your travel photos don’t look as good as the pro’s shots.

1. You’re Not Patient Enough
Often one of the biggest differences between professional and amateur photographers is the time spent waiting for the perfect photo. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I have been waiting at a location for the perfect light only to see a host of people turn up with the latest camera equipment, take a couple of photos and then leave.

4 Tips to Help People Photographers Shoot Interior Spaces

As a people photographer, I am not a specialist in photographing still forms like architectural structures and interior spaces. However, because I photograph weddings, I often take photos of interiors and locations as part of the wedding photos I give my clients. This is essentially how I learned to develop an eye for detail, form and structure as part and parcel of my work.

Let me share with you a few tips I have learned that will hopefully get you started in photographing interior spaces and architecture if you are a people photographer.

#1 Use natural light
One of the advantages of still photography is simply that – nothing moves.

Best camera focus techniques: 10 surefire ways to get sharp photos

One of the first rules of photography is that the subject should be sharp. Most modern digital cameras offer a number of ways of achieving sharp photos, and in this post we’re going to look at the most important digital camera focus techniques and the best settings to use. We’ll look at how to select the AF point and which focus mode to use.

Manual focus

Although nearly all modern digital cameras can focus the lens automatically (the Leica M9, Leica M9-P and Leica Monochrom being notable exceptions) they also allow you to focus manually instead.

Manual focus is a particularly good option with macro photography because many cameras struggle to lock onto very close subjects and the lens ends up hunting (moving in and out of focus) every time the shutter release button is depressed.

It’s far less frustrating to switch the camera (or the lens) to manual focus and do the job yourself.

What’s more, Live View technology makes manual focusing very easy because it is usually possible to enlarge the image on the screen so that you can see the precise spot that you are interested in, and then adjust the focus until it is perfectly sharp.

10 Tips for a stunning landscape image

How to improve your landscape photos with 10 quick landscape photography tips. Whether you’re new to digital photography or just searching for new photo ideas, our quick and easy landscape photography tips and camera tips will help you take better pictures with the minimum of fuss.

1. The magic hour
Beautiful landscape photos are often defined by the quality of light they were taken in. As a consequence, photographers tend to shoot early in the morning or during late afternoons when the sun is lower, less contrasty and often displays a subtle colour palette of moody hues. For this reason, the hours after dawn and before dusk are known as the ‘magic hours’. If rising at dawn doesn’t sit well with your idea of a relaxing weekend, don’t panic – there are plenty of great landscape opportunities throughout the day.

Tips for Photographing Local Parks

Parks are wonderful places to capture fantastic, unique photos. Besides the obvious fauna and flowers, you will often also find people interacting with each other and the environment. All of which can lead to some great photos, to highlight another point of interest at a destination.

Here are some simple tips to try out next time you are heading to a local park:

Check the RulesOften you will find that local parks (e.g. parks in cities) have guidelines regarding photography. The majority of the time if you do not intend to use the photos for commercial purposes (i.e. they are just for yourself) you will be fine and should have no problem. But, be on the lookout for signs in the park which indicate otherwise. However, if you are intending to sell the images you should check the guidelines and rules that apply. For example some of the Royal parks in London allow photography for editorial use but not commercial. This means the photo can be used when in context to a story, or feature about the park or London, but not advertising something – so make sure you check the rules before selling your images.

Be Selective with Your PhotosOne of the great things about parks is the wealth of things you can photograph. Flowers, wildlife, trees, lakes, animals, statues and even people, all offer great opportunities for photos. But instead of trying to photograph everything, think about what the park represents, and is famous for, and focus on a few subjects that will bring it to life. This will mean you end up with a few great photos that really highlight the best attributes rather than a hundred that end up being repetitive.


One of the most iconic things about Hyde Park in London is the Peter Pan statue.

How to calculate hyperfocal distance: free photography cheat sheet

What is hyperfocal distance? Before the introduction of autofocus cameras, the use of ‘hyperfocal distance’ was a popular focus technique used by photographers – and it’s still one of the really neat camera tricks for times when your camera struggles to autofocus in difficult lighting conditions.

Hyperfocal distance is basically the distance that you can focus to at any given aperture, where the resulting depth of field will retain sharpness in the scene from as far away as infinity to the closest possible point.

The depth of field increases greatly when combining smaller apertures with wider-angle zoom settings, so using the hyperfocal distance technique is particularly useful for landscape photography, especially when you’re using a lens that has a built-in distance scale.

Hyperfocal focusing: how to calculate the best distance to focus at

Knowing how to calculate hyperfocal distance isn’t actually as complex as its technical name implies, but mastering this important photography technique can make all the difference to your photography. Here we answer all of the common questions photographers have about hyperfocal focusing

Hyperfocal focusing? Sounds a bit ‘new age‘…

It’s actually an old-school technique that helps you maximise sharpness in a photo. A camera lens can only focus to a single distance at any one time, but there’s an area that extends from that point, both towards the camera and towards the horizon, where things still look sharp. This area is known as the depth of field.

Beach Photography Tips

Here in Australia we love to hit the beach.
We’re one big island and most of our population is scattered along the coast line so the beach is a natural place for us to go both on day trips and longer holidays.
Beaches present digital camera owners with a number of wonderful opportunities as they are places of natural beauty, color and interesting light. However they also present a variety of challenges including camera damage, privacy issues and making large open spaces interesting.

Here are some tips for when you head to the beach with your digital camera next:

5 Tips for Better Long Exposure Landscape Photography

Even if you are an experienced landscape photographer you will know there is lots to consider when approaching the area of long exposure, landscape photography.

The following five tips are just some of the things I have learned, (often the hard way) on my own journey with landscape photography and I hope you are able to take advantage of them and apply them in your own work.



1 – Consider the scene without the camera

9 Tips to Help you get Sharp Focus at Night

Autofocus is so good on modern cameras that most photographers use it all the time. It seemingly never lets you down. But, let’s say it’s nighttime and you are going to do some shooting. You find a good spot. You set up your tripod. You go to focus your camera using the autofocus. You can feel the camera’s focus ring twisting back and forth, trying to focus. But it never gets there. The camera keeps hunting for a focus spot but never finds one.

Uh-oh.  What are you going to do now?

Landscape Photography tips

Source: DigitalCameraWorld

My sunrise weekend

I am a hobbyist photographer and usually go out with my camera on weekends. Last weekend, as usual, I was ready for my sunrise shoot in Mentone beach. Every thing was ready for the wonderful morning, the weather was forecast to be partly cloudy which is my favorite. I love to shoot sunrise landscape with clouds patterns in orange and colorful sky. Tripod ready, filters ready, and certainly my best friends, canon 60D and Tamron 17-50mm f2.8. I am absolutely ready to go.

Canon 60D	Tripd	Tamron 17=-50mm f2.8

My best friends

Got up at 6.30am, leave home around 6.45am and got to the beach at 7.15am. I have about 15 minutes before the sun comes up. The sky turns to wonderful colors, many sea gulls and pelicans there. I took the first photo of the sky. DO NOT forget to check the settings which is: aperture priority - f9, ISO 100. That's great.

Canon EOS 7D Mark II First Impressions

This is a personal thought on 7D mark II from Laszlo Pusztai

When I first picked up the 7D Mark II at this year's Photokina show, it struck me how similar it feels to the 5D Mark III. I thought that if image quality is there, I would definitely buy one. Due to this similarity with the 5D Mark III, I instantly knew that ergonomics and handling will be great. The only haunting question was image quality, but lacking any useful reviews, I had to place my order without knowing anything about it. My primary goal was to certify the camera for my ShutterCount app - and actually using it for photographing birds came as second. Purchasing blindly wasn't that big risk, because if it somehow turns out to be something I don't like, I would be able to easily sell it given the high demand.

And as you may guess, I really like the 7D Mark II. But being a perfectionist, I don't think everything is as glorious as marketing materials may suggest. Some of my observations may look strange, or don't even important to you and your style of photography, but this is what I think of the camera.

Handling

As I mentioned, handling is virtually identical to the 5D Mark III. I can switch between them effortlessly. The 7D is a tad smaller, and is on the edge of being comfortable in my large hands. Buttons and dials are almost the same on the two cameras, with two notable differences.

5 Tips for Shooting Better Landscapes

Hands down, the number one question I get is how to make better landscape images. Many fall into the new-gear trap thinking that when I upgrade to some new DSLR then I’ll be able to take better pictures. They buy the gear and suddenly the wind drops from their sails and their images still lack impact. So let’s talk about some things you can do to make your landscape photos pop.

1. Fanatically Chase the Best Light

What is good light you say? There is really no such thing as bad light, but it’s hard to create images with impact during the middle of the day when the sun is high. Midday the sun is harsh and it washes out colors and texture with heavy dark shadows.
The best time to get out and shoot everyday is when the sun is low in the sky because it creates more interesting side lighting that gives the subject more depth and scale. The light is much warmer creating softer highlights with better texture detail. This low warm light is also near sunrise and sunset and those are obvious times to add amazing colors to a landscape.

Late spring yellow leaves in Hanoi

Lenses for The Discerning Landscape Photographer

Photography is about capturing light though lenses, but choosing the right lens for the job isn’t always cut and dry.  Lenses for landscape photographers can be particularly difficult to choose because the vast array of options available.

First and foremost, there is no one-size fits all, do everything lens.  New photographers often look for the one lens that will do everything and then some, this doesn’t exist.  There are options to fit your specific needs though, and that’s what we’re going to explore.  The real answer is 12mm-500mm, it really depends on what you’re shooting and where you are in relation to it. If you can find one lens like that, the quality of images it produces will be the next issue. Remember, the longer lens' range is, the worse its optical quality.

Fast lenses, or those with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 or faster aren’t always needed either, because the sweet spot of most lenses, or where they are sharpest and perform the best, is often between f/8 and f/11

The wide angle lens is traditionally the go-to lens for landscape photographers.  On full frame digital SLR’s this would be anything from about 14mm through 35mm, depending on the manufacture.  For cropped sensor digital SLRs, specific wide angle lenses, like the Sigma 12-24mm zoom give the equivalent of an 18-36mm lens, still allowing a very wide shot.  The wide angle id desirable because it allows for a larger then life perspective on your landscape, capturing what’s immediately in front of you, at your feet all the way through the edge of one’s peripheral vision.  It’s the go-to lens for many landscape photographers

Sigma 12-24mm, one of the equivalent lens for landscape photography