  CONTENTS: ▪ Article – Photographing Rainforests▪ 2023 WildArt Photographer of the Year winners ▪ Article – Photographing Rainforests ▪ 2023 WildArt Photographer of the Year winners New dates for photography workshops just released: ▪ 5 DAY LAMINGTON NATIONAL PARK – QLD ▪ 3 DAY LAMINGTON NATIONAL PARK BIRDS – QLD ▪ 3 DAY BUNYA MOUNTAINS BIRDS – QLD ▪ 5 DAY LAMINGTON NATIONAL PARK – QLD ▪ 3 DAY LAMINGTON NATIONAL PARK BIRDS – QLD ▪ 3 DAY BUNYA MOUNTAINS BIRDS – QLD Dear Nancy, Welcome to my March 2024 photography newsletter. I hope you are continuing to enjoy this wonderful world of wildlife and nature photography. Enjoy the newsletter : – )) Cheers – Michael Photography Article PHOTOGRAPHING RAINFORESTS TEXT AND IMAGE BY MICHAEL SNEDIC  Australia is fortunate to have so many wonderful rainforests. Large areas are protected and visitors are encouraged. Life is hectic for many of us these days, so it’s a joy and a privilege to experience the tranquility, beauty and clean air of a rainforest. I love spending time in them with my camera. But rainforest photography can also be really challenging. Here are few basic techniques and tips which can start you along the right path in these tricky environments. I want to outline the four most effective ideas I’ve discovered for quickly achieving better rainforest shots. 01 USING NATURE’S DIFFUSERBeginners might be surprised to learn that by far the best weather for shooting in a rainforest is when it’s overcast. The clouds act as ‘nature’s diffuser’ and they’ll stop unsightly highlights and shadows appearing in your images. Whether you’re photographing a waterfall or cascade, buttress roots or a valley filled with tree ferns, subtle lighting will really help you to take a good rainforest photo. On cold mornings mist will often appear throughout the forest, and if you happen to be in the right place at the right time, rays of light can also appear beaming through the rainforest canopy. The combination of overcast weather, mist and rays of light can make for very special rainforest images. Remember, this often happens around sunrise, so early starts are unfortunately essential! 02 TRIPOD USE Small apertures or f-stops, such as f/11 or f/16 for SLRs or Mirrorless, allow more of your landscape scene to stay in focus (they create a better depth-of-field, for foreground to background sharpness), but they also let less light in, so to make a ‘correct’ exposure you’ll need to use a slower shutter speed. Hand holding a camera using a slow shutter speed can then create a blurry image. For this reason I always carry a sturdy tripod. If you’re using a heavier SLR camera and lens, a flimsy tripod can still be quite unstable and any tiny movements (often caused by a breeze) can cause blur in your images. If you’re walking long distances, I recommend you take a carbon fibre or mag fibre tripod. These are lighter, but they’ll provide your camera with more stability. I also recommend using a cable release or a remote trigger device (or even a self-timer setting) with your camera, whether it’s a compact, DSLR or Mirrorless. This will further reduce any vibration caused when you press the shutter button. 03 THE BEST SETTINGS To achieve good depth-of-field for a rainforest image, apertures of f/11 to f/16 are the aperture settings I recommend when I’m using a wide-angled lens with an SLR or Mirrorless camera. Setting a smaller aperture like f/22, or even smaller, can cause unsightly diffraction (where the edges of your photo lose sharpness to some degree because the light entering the lens is bent or sometimes broken into its component elements). For many compact cameras an aperture of f/8 is ideal, and this is sometimes the smallest aperture you can set. When you’re using a tripod to photograph a landscape in a rainforest, I suggest setting the camera’s ISO rating to 100 (or whatever minimum ISO your camera allows). On this minimum setting no ‘noise’ should be visible in your image. Digital ‘noise’ is indicated by tiny red, green and blue dots appearing all over your shot (visible when you blow the image up). It adversely affects image quality. For photos of rainforests or waterfalls I recommend using the meter setting that reads the entire scene, rather than just a small section of it. Metering is the way a camera reads the overall light exposure of the scene or subject you’re shooting. For the Nikon cameras I use I find the best metering is ‘matrix’. For Canon users it’s called ‘evaluative’ and for some other brands this type of metering is known as ‘multi-segment’ or ‘multi pattern’. 04 LONG EXPOSURES I’m often asked by photography workshop students how to achieve the ‘milky’ or ‘silky’ water appearance you often see in waterfalls, cascades and other scenes where water’s flowing. This look is very popular with photographers and it’s one that’s relatively easy to achieve. By using a small aperture (a higher number like f/11 or f/16), low ISOs and a tripod, you can achieve that ‘milky’ effect, especially if you’re photographing pre-dawn, after sunset or on a darker, gloomy day. The relative darkness and small lens aperture means your camera needs to use a very slow shutter speed to make a ‘correct’ exposure. If the exposure is long enough, the fast-flowing water in your scene will simply blur as it moves rapidly across your camera’s frame, which ultimately causes the water to look ‘milky’. Sometimes, however, you might not have low enough light when you’re at a waterfall or cascade, so some help is needed! You’ll then need a neutral density filter and longer exposure time (achieved via a slower shutter speed) . Neutral-density filters come in various degrees of ‘darkness’, so the darker the filter, the milkier your water will be. I use variable neutral-density filters because I find you only need one filter rather than a series of individual units with varying degrees of darkness to create different effects. For SLR and Mirrorless users a circular polariser is also effective in rainforests, because it can remove much of the glare often found on wet leaves, rocks and on the water itself. The circular polariser works in the same way as polarised sunglasses. By turning the circular polarised filter around as you look through the camera’s viewfinder, you’ll actually see the shiny areas disappear. The polariser can also work as a kind of neutral-density filter, by allowing you to reduce your camera’s shutter speed and thus once again allowing the water to blur.  The winners of the 2023 WildArt Photographer of the Year Competition were recently announced. It was loads of fun being one of the judges for this competition, with so many amazing images entered! Check out Hermis Haida’s stunning winner’s image below! See the various category winners: HERE  2024 WildArt POTY winner – Image (c) Hermis Haridas  5 DAY LAMINGTON NP PHOTO WORKSHOP – QLD NEW DATE RELEASED! June 2024 Want to spend 5 days in a lush rainforest, learning how to best photograph birds and other wildlife, macro subjects and landscapes? To read full details, please click: HERE  Leaf-tailed Gecko – Image (c) Michael Snedic  Fungi – Image (c) Michael Snedic 3 DAY LAMINGTON NP BIRD PHOTO WORKSHOP – QLD NEW DATE RELEASED! September 2024 On this 3 day bird photography workshop in Lamington NP we plan on finding as many bird species as we can over the course of the workshop. You will also learn loads of tried and tested bird photography techniques that will help you achieve great images. To read full details, please click: HERE  Regent Bowerbird – Image (c) Michael Snedic 3 DAY BUNYA MOUNTAINS BIRD PHOTO WORKSHOP – QLD NEW DATE RELEASED! September 2024 Spend three days in the beautiful Bunya Mountains, Queensland, learning how to best photograph the myriad of birds found there. To read full details, please click: HERE  Rose Robin – Image (c) Michael Snedic  Do you have any questions? You can send a message via my website Contact Form: HERE  ©2024 Michael Snedic Photography | Balfour St, Ferny Hills QLD 4055 | 0408 941 965 |
by Chris Kenyon on 15 March 2024
