I went to Rocky Mountain National Park last weekend to kick off Travel Photo Guide’s iPhone Contest on Facebook. Professional photographer Erik Stensland guided me to one of his favorite spots for a morning sunrise.

One of the many tools you can use to get postcard-perfect photos is a graduated neutral density filter (Grad ND). These filters are used for high-contrast scenes where a very bright light is focused in one spot such as a sunrise or sunset scene. The reason you need to compensate for a high-contrast scene is because it has more contrast than your camera can capture the way your eyes see it (your eyes see a broader range of brightness than your camera).

A graduated neutral density filter reduces the contrast of the scene because the filter has a gradient from dark to light. In this example the sun was coming up over the Rocky Mountains and was shining very brightly on Longs Peak but not on the lake or the meadow. I knew I needed to reduce the contrast because the mountains would have appeared too light or the lake too dark without a filter to compensate for the bright sun. The graduated neutral density filter allows you to get both the sun and other elements in the photo equally exposed. 

To take a properly exposed sunrise/sunset photo you will need to position your lens so the dark part of the filter covers all of the sky. If you do not cover all of the sky you will see a dark line in your photo. It is sometimes hard to see where the line is in the photo. The easiest way is to take a picture and look at the LCD on the back of your camera and move the filter or lens until there is no line that is visible. 

Graduated Neutral Density Filters

If you have any great shots in RMNP, please post them on our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rocky-Mountain-National-Park-Travel-Photo-Guide/120584007990882?ref=ts and enter the contest.  We are giving away some great prizes. 

Expansive iconic views such as this one of Tunnel View in Yosemite Valley need to be captured by taking multiple images. The reason for this is the image is much wider than it is tall, which is a different aspect ratio than your digital camera. For example, this image is roughly twice and wide as it is tall and requires 4 images to create. 

Taking beautiful panoramic photographs is easy to do with both digital SRLs and point and shoot cameras. Most point and shoots include a panoramic mode and software to help you. For SRLs you will probably need to purchase software that stitches image together. My preference is Calico, it is inexpensive and easy to use. Some people prefer AutoStitch, PTGUI or Hugin and AutoPano Pro. All of these programs will blend the images and give you great results. 

Taking a Panoramic Photograph

1.) Put your camera in either manual mode or panoramic mode and set the correct exposure. For this day light scene of Tunnel View, I set the exposure to ISO 100, f16 and 1/125^th of a second. You’ll hear this called the “Sunny 16 Rule” which works for all bright, sunny days.

2.) Manually set your white balance (don’t use auto white balance). I set my white balance to sunny in this case.

 3.) Take multiple pictures of the image overlapping each one by about one third (The reason you do this is the lens is higher quality in the center and the software works better if you have overlap to work with). Be sure to capture more of the image than you intend to print.

4. Put the images in the software you are using and it will stitch the images together into one big picture.

Hints and Tips

Here’s an example of why you need to take a larger image than you want. Notice the dark bands on the top and bottom. The software created this when it put the images together because there wasn’t image data to complete the picture.

Also notice in this image that part of it is much darker. I took this image to show what happens when you use auto exposure.

Making Prints

One of the beauties of taking stitching shots is they make great prints because you have more pixels. In this case I used a 5-megapixel camera and created a 20-megapixel image. The best part—you can use an basic camera to create the same quality image as someone with expensive professional gear.

All of the professional photographers in the Travel Photo Guide Apps will tell you that overcast days are great for photographing flowers and waterfall which benefit from soft light of the overcast day.   However, overcast days present a challenge for broader landscape scenes that contain a lot of sky in them. What typically happens is your photo gets under exposed because you’re camera is fooled because there is so much white in the scene.

Technically speaking, in these conditions the camera’s light meter adjusts your exposure so the average light in the scene is a neutral grey. Since the scene is mostly light on a overcast day the camera’s light meter is fooled. Professional photographers sometimes carry a special (and expensive!) light meter that uses a different method, which doesn’t get fooled by those pesky clouds. 

Photo 1: Here is a really good example where you are shooting a white object against an overcast sky.  This is the Pigeon Point Lighthouse on the San Mateo Coast of California.  The first shot is taken on auto exposure. Notice how the lighthouse is grey and the sky looks blue.

You don’t need an expensive meter to deal with gloomy days, but you will have learn a bit about what my wife calls the dreaded histograms. Histograms show you the brightness of the light in a graph form on your camera’s display. If you don’t want to learn how to use that functionality on your camera at the moment, you can figure out how  to get a properly exposed photo by looking at the preview of your image after you’ve taken the picture to see if it’s too dark. If it is, here’s how you fix it: There’s a little plus/minus button on most cameras. For a cloudy, you’ll want to hit plus until it says “1” which should be the right exposure for most cloudy days.

Photo 2: Now look at the second photo where I adjusted adjusted exposure to Plus 1 (EV). 

When you are done, don’t forget to hit the minus button until the display reads 0.  Otherwise when you get to a sunny day all of your photos.  Easier than the dreaded histogram. 

Polarizers are an essential tool for outdoor photographers. You don’t need them often, but when you do there’s really no substitute for having them. Personally I always keep one in my camera bag; they don’t weigh much and take up very little space. Here’s when you need a polarizer; when the sky is hazy or when photographing foliage and the leaves are wet. On a hazy day the polarizer will help make the sky blue and any clouds will stand out which greatly improves your photos. Without getting too technical, here’s what happens: Conditions that reflect or scatter light such as mist or haze or water on leaves add white to all the colors in the photo. The effect is to reduce the intensity of the colors and change the hue. Think if you have a can of paint and add white to it, what happens to the color? It becomes less intense. The polarizer reduces this scattered light, and your colors will be both more intense and natural. Here is an example of Niagara Falls shot both without and with the polarizer.

If you’re graduating from a point and shoot camera to an SLR, one thing you’ll need to learn is how to get what you want in your photo in focus. Point and shoot cameras put almost everything in focus, while SLRs have a selective focus area.

What you may notice when you first take photographs with an SLR is that sometimes part of your picture is not in focus. The reason this happens is in full auto mode the camera doesn’t know what you want to have in focus and may make the wrong decision, choosing the wrong place to focus and aperture setting (A in the camera). You can correct this easily by taking your camera off auto mode and changing a few settings.

I took at the Filoli estate in Woodside, California to show the difference between leaving everything on full auto and changing the aperture and focus point using the Travel Photo Guide depth of field tool.

Here’s an example of a photo taken in full auto. Notice the foreground flowers are in focus and the background is blurry. Sometimes you want the background blurred for an artistic effect, but for photos like this of flowers, you generally want to have everything in focus (at least my wife does). 

Here’s an example of the same photo using the Travel Photo Guides Depth of Field tool and the camera to determine the appropriate settings to get everything in focus.

Here’s how you do it in 3 easy steps:

Step 1: Determine Depth of Field

Determine the distance from the object closest to you and the object furthest away that you want in focus by using the camera’s distance scale. Point the camera at the closest object and focus. The end of your lens has a distance scale; look at the numbers to determine how far away you are. Remember or write this number down, which you will use in the Depth of Field tool. Repeat this process for the objects furthest away (if it’s further than a few hundred feet, use infinity). 

Step 2: Use the Depth of Field Focus Finder Tool

Enter your camera and lens type. Use slider on top to indicate the distance of the closest object and the furthest. The tool tells you the distance to focus on and what aperture setting (f-stop). 

Step 3: Set up Your Camera

Put your camera in “A” mode (aperture/f-stop). Set the aperture to what the tool indicated. Focus on an object you think is approximately that far away and check the distance scale to measure accurately.  Take your photo.

We’re in the third review cycle at apple, but we think we’re almost out the door - fingers crossed!