Tag: butterfly
Over and over on the blog, I preach that the gear does not make the photographer. One simple way to elevate your photography is by upgrading your photo editing software. When I got started in photography, I used Google’s free editing software, Picassa. Its inexpensive and enables the photographer to make very simple changes to a photo (i.e. exposure, contrast, simple color adjustments, crop). It is good for basic snapshots, but doesn’t really do what a serious photographer needs. Photoshop is expensive, so my first upgrade was to Photoshop Elements ($74 on Amazon). While it is a step in the right direction, it is not easy to use. And, like Picassa you have to save a copy of every photo you edit which takes up a lot of space on your hard drive, not to mention its a pain when you want to re-edit a photo. Then, I hear about Adobe Creative Cloud, a $9.99/month subscription service in which you get Lightroom and Photoshop. I signed up for a 30 day free trial and never looked back. Lightroom is so much more user friendly than Elements and its Library function is a godsend in photo organization. All three of these programs have RAW editors, but I definitely recommend Lightroom. If you’re not interested in a subscription service, you can purchase Lightroom 6 on Amazon. Of course, you do need Photoshop for more advanced edits. I’ll have Chris write on that later.
About the Photo:
This was a single RAW exposure with basic edits done in Lightroom. In a future post I will detail what I mean when I say “basic edits”.
Camera Gear:
Nikon D3100 with 55-200 kit lens, handheld
Date Taken:
June 3, 2016
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Every spring, butterflies abound at the Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids! I’ve always wanted to visit during Butterflies are Blooming! In the caterpillar room, you can see caterpillars crawling and forming their chrysalides. Then, walk into the tropical greenhouse where 50 different species of butterflies soar high and stop on the flowers for a quick drink. You could see Monarchs, Golden Birdwings, and Common Morpho who is tan on the outside and bright blue on the inside. In the gardens, the flowers weren’t yet blooming, but it was a good time to explore the sculptures without the heat and the crowds.
About the Photo:
Shooting butterflies is a great learning experience for photographers. If you want to learn to shoot in manual, small, fast moving subjects are a great way to learn! A zoom lens with fast shutter speeds and high ISO are needed to freeze the motion and capture the tiniest details. This was a single RAW exposure, with basic edits done in Lightroom. This was shot at ISO 3200, which with my entry-level DSLR is quite noisy, so I did a lot of noise reduction as well.
Camera Gear:
Nikon D3100 with 55-200mm f/4-5.6 lens handheld.
Date Taken:
March 28, 2016
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