New eBook – Advanced Filters for Digital Nature Photography

Note: To see all future ebook releases, please visit us over at oopoomoo.com

Samantha and I have just released our latest eBook on Advanced Filters for Digital Nature Photography.

This eBook continues where our last eBook, Essential Filters for Digital Nature Photography, left off and introduces photographers to advanced filter techniques that lead to creative imagery often impossible to replicate in software.

Learn how to use in-camera filters to create unique and desirable effects. Darwin and Samantha cover the Gold-N-Blue and Blue/Yellow polarizing filters, the 1.5 stop hard-edge grad filter for reflection photos, the Daryl Benson reverse ND grad filter, and specialty ND filters like Lee’s Big Stopper and Singh-Rays trio of Vari-ND filters.

Learn how to correct colour casts caused by filtration in post-production, see why a 1.5 stop ND grad is the solution for perfect reflection photos, discover why the Daryl Benson reverse ND grad is an essential filter for prairie and desert photography, and be creative by using ND and Vari-ND filters to ‘paint with time’. Finally, Darwin and Samantha show you the creative power of combining two or more of these filters for expressive and creative photography. The eBook costs $10, is 49 pages long and is available here.

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Lee SW150 Filter Holder

For anyone who owns a Nikon 14-24mm lens or a Canon 17mm TSE lens (both have the bulbous rounded front element),  Lee now has the SW150 (superwide 150mm) filter holder available for order.The SW150 Filter Holder has been designed to specifically fit the Nikon 14-24mm lens, but will also be adapted to fit on other super wide lenses after its initial launch. The SW150 is available as a Starter Kit containing a Filter Holder, Adaptor Collar for the lens, a 0.6ND  (2-stop) Hard Graduated filter that is 150mm wide x 170mm long, and a Neoprene Lens cap that fits over the collar when the holder is not attached.

The full range of LEE resin graduated and standard filters are also available to order for the SW150 but there will be no Polarizer or Big Stopper available for this system. A separately sold custom fitting called the “System Adaptor” allows you to fit the SW150 onto an existing LEE Adaptor Ring enabling it to be fitted to other lenses.

The SW150 Starter Kit is now available to order from any store that sells Lee Filters, like The Camera Store in Calgary

Lee SW150 Filter Holder on the Nikon 14-24mm lens

Weekly Photo – July 30

©Darwin Wiggett - Canon EOS-1ds Mark III, 24mm Tilt-Shift Lens

I used my standard ‘prairie’ filtering technique (a Singh-Ray Cokin Z-pro sprocket mount LB warming polarizer plus a 4×6 Singh-Ray Two-Stop hard-Edge Grad in a Cokin Z-Pro Holder) to even out the exposure between the sky and the foreground in this scene. I also used the shift feature on my Canon 24mm TSE lens to make a big square image (click on the photo to see a larger version). If you are interested in exactly how I made this photo, check out the video below. The only thing the video does not show is my post-processing procedure which is simply using Photo Merge in Photoshop CS-5 to merge the two component images. Finally I used a strong s-curve on the photo to punch up the contrast in the scene. As you will see the video is ‘on the fly’ (or mosquito in this case) and anything can happen.

The Daily Snap – July 8

©Darwin Wiggett

Sunrise from yesterday taken near Cochrane, Alberta. Canon G11 with a Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer and a Singh-Ray 2-stop hard-step grad over the sky. To see how I use grads in the field go here.

Grad Filter Video

©Darwin Wiggett - No filters used

©Darwin Wiggett - Singh-Ray 2-Stop Hard-Step filter over sky

Unscripted video – can you catch my dyslexia in at least two places? Doh!

The Daily Snap – May 5

©Darwin Wiggett - Canon G11

Winter just keeps hanging on here. First we have had fresh snow and then crazy wind and rain. I went out  two days ago to shoot and had 5 minutes of intense glow at sunrise. I had just enough time to snap two photos with my G11. I used a 3-stop hard-edge Singh-Ray grad to hold back the bright sunrise sky. I actually shot this as a JPEG because I forgot to set the G11 to RAW (yes I am a professional, sometimes you would know though). The image above is how the JPEG came out in camera but I added a tad of tonal contrast in Nik Color Efex to make it look a little more snappy as a small image here. For the rest of the morning I played with Singh-Ray’s three different Vari-ND filters  (hint a new version is about to be released) testing how they compare to one another. I will have the full test shortly.