If you’re thinking about trying you hand at wildlife photography but don’t quite know where to start, the beginners guide below is just what you need. You’ll pick up some great advice from an accomplished pro that will enable you to get going this weekend.

And don’t worry that this genre of photography requires traveling to an exotic location. That’s because you can capture great images at a local nature reserve, nearby lake or stream, or even by taking a quick trip to the zoo. And if you use a long lens for photographing your kid’s sporting events, you already have what you need.

Instructor Simon d’Entremont is a notable Canadian wildlife and nature photographer based in Nova Scotia. He covers a lot of ground in this 17-minute introduction to the craft, so you may want to be prepared to jot down a few notes.

Simon explains everything from essential equipment, important camera settings like focus, metering, and exposure modes, to basic field techniques. There’s also a helpful discussion, especially for beginners, regarding where and when you’ll have the best chance of finding appropriate subjects throughout the year—no matter where you live.

The lesson kicks off with gear, and Simon says there’s really only two things you needed to get started: a camera and the aforementioned long lens. While a fast maximum aperture can be a very helpful, any telephoto will do. A tripod is a great accessory when shooting in low light.

Simon says that any interchangeable-lens camera you currently own will likely work just fine, and here’s how he summarizes this portion of the lesson: “In wildlife photography the lens is more important than the camera and will more greatly impact your photos.” in other words, like with other types of photography, a great lens on a cheap camera will yield better photos than a cheap lens on a high-end professional camera body.

The best camera settings and modes for wildlife photography can be vastly different than those used for other genres, especially when photography birds in flight and other subjects in motion.  Simon clearly explains the optimum choices to make for different types of wildlife—with frame rates, focusing modes, and shutter speeds of particular concern.

Depth of field must be also be considered so you can accentuate the subject in your scene by separating it from an out-of-focus background. Simon says that one question he receives frequently has to with where, when, and how to find great subjects, and this topic is an important aspect of the video.

The foregoing is just a taste of what you’ll learn by watching this episode, and there are more wildlife tips and tricks on Simon’s instructional YouTube channel. You may also want to revisit a previous tutorial we posted from Simon in which he explains how to choose the best camera settings for shooting wildlife, landscapes, portraits and more.

Sometimes we’re out and about, capture a nice shot, and don’t want to wait until we return home to edit the image on a computer. The solution is simple: load the image into Lightroom Mobile and get the processing done.

Instructor Anthony Morganti is a photo-editing impresario to whom we frequently turn for his expert advice. This episode is a departure because his Photoshop and Lightroom tutorials typically involve getting the job done with the computer versions of these popular image editors.

This lesson is a very helpful quick-start guide to mobile editing, and Morganti demonstrates the basics on his iPad. He notes that what you’ll learn also works on an iPhone—and should translate to Android devices as well. He walks you through a simple edit and covers all the basics.

The first thing you have to do when opening Lightroom Mobile is log into your Creative Cloud account. Once you do that the album section of Lightroom Mobile will appear. It resembles the Library Module in Lightroom Classic where all your photos reside. So simply tap on a thumbnail and the image will open in the Edit section.

One thing you’ll notice right away is that Lightroom Mobile has far more capabilities than you likely thought. The Edit panel appears to the right of your image and displays a wide variety of tools. Categories include Light, Color, Effects, Detail, Optics, and Geometry. Further down in the panel you’ll find options for Presets, Cropping, Healing tools, Masking, and Lens Blur.

In other words, the vast array of features that will enable to accomplish much of what you typically accomplish on the computer. Surprised? There’s also a section on the left side of the workspace that includes all your albums. These are pretty much like your Collections in Lightroom Classic.

Now that you understand how to navigate the Lightroom Mobile app, Morganti walks you the step-by step process he uses to edit one of his shots—a photo he pulls out of his Landscape album that needs a bit of work.

Morganti explains why he always begin with cropping and straightening as needed, before moving on other adjustments like color, sharpening, exposure and the like. Whether you’re working with a mobile device or on the computer, the order in which you enhance an image can be important for achieving the best possible results.

So pay close attention as Morganti takes you through the entire editing process, which may not seem too different than what you usually do on the computer. Then head over to his very popular YouTube channel where you’ll find more great image-editing advice.

We also suggest checking out an earlier tutorial we posted with another expert who explains how to unlock the power of complementary colors when editing photographs in Lightroom.

Sometimes we’re out in the field and conditions aren’t great. Either the light isn’t right, or maybe everything you see looks like images you’ve shot in the past. So what to do?

The idea of giving up, going home, and returning on a better day simply doesn’t sit well with most of us. So how about this: Do the best you can and then sit down behind the computer to add some dramatic fog to the scene for an eye-catching effect. In today’s episode from the PHLOG Photography YouTube channel you’ll learn how easy this is to do in Lightroom.

German landscape pro Christian Mohrle makes it super simple to follow his advice by including a link beneath the video for downloading his sample image. This enables you to make the adjustments yourself as they’re explained.

The tutorial follows Mohrle’s standard procedure whereby he makes several basic adjustments to an image to prepare it for the selective enhancements that really make the shot. He begins by opening Lightroom’s Basic panel and changing the profile from Adobe Color to Adobe Standard. This simple step immediately lessens contrast which is one key to achieving the effect.

Other preliminary adjustments include using the appropriate sider to further reduce contrast, dropping Highlights for more details in the trees, and cutting shadows to achieve more “punch” in the foreground. Mohrle also reduces blacks, Vibrance, and Dehaze, and adds a bit of Texture and Clarity.

The foregoing steps accentuate a bit of fog that appeared in the original photo, but Mohrle wants to take things further by adding more fog just above the horizon. And this is where masking and selective enhancements come into play for significantly ramping up the atmospheric effect.

Mohrle adds a simple mask over the foreground which he uses to boost contrast and brighten Highlights in this portion of the frame—all while keeping a close eye on the Histogram to avoid overexposure. He also modifies Color Temperature to introduce blue tones to the foreground.  

Next Mohrle places a Linear Gradient over the background and makes several adjustments to the sky. In this step it’s important not to bias tones in a distant tree so that it remains separated from what lays behind. Now it’s time to add an obvious layer of fog above the horizon, and Mohrle walks you through the simple steps.

All that remains to complete the impressive transformation is minimal color grading and sharpening. If you like what you see head over to Mohrle’s popular YouTube channel where there’s much more to learn.

On a related note, be sure to check out the tutorial we posted from another accomplished pro recently, explaining a simple three-step Lightroom technique for turning ho-hum winter landscape photographs into money shots.

A couple days ago we featured an interesting tutorial explaining how to shoot intentionally blurry photos and capture artistic images full of motion and emotion. Today it’s back to a primary goal of most landscape photographers; namely, the best way to maximize sharpness when shooting in the field.

Experienced shooters know that there’s more to this task than fast and accurate focus. That’s because it’s equally important to achieve optimum sharpness precisely where it belongs within the frame. To that end Scottish pro Gary McIntyre demonstrates the three methods he relies upon to get the job done with all sorts of landscape scenes.

You’ll follow McIntyre hike through “a photographer’s playground” under great conditions as he describes a trio of techniques that are easy to accomplish by photographers of all skill levels. He begins astride a stream with his camera atop a tripod while explaining why he wants to focus on a distant tree without worrying about water in the foreground.

McIntyre explains the reasoning behind the camera settings he chooses. Then you’ll see how zooms in on the primary subject and combines manual focus with the camera’s Focus Peaking feature to achieve perfect focus exactly where he wants it. He also sets the camera’s two-second self-timer to avoid camera movement with the slow shutter speed in use.

That’s pretty simple, right? But what should you do if the scene you confront lacks one specific point of focus? That’s when the technique known as “focus-stacking” comes into play. With this approach you shoot multiple images of the scene, without moving the camera—each with a different point of focus.

Usually two or three shots is all that’s required, depending upon the complexity of the scene. By merging these images during the editing process is possible to achieve a sharp background, foreground, and everything in between. McIntyre describes how to modify camera settings accordingly to make the most of this powerful method.

The lesson concludes with a discussion of why, when and how to use back-button focus. McIntyre says he usually employs this method for landscape photography, especially when shooting in the Aperture Priority exposure mode.

This technique requires that your camera permits you to assign the focusing function to a custom button on the back of the camera. And if it does, there are a variety of advantages for doing exactly that. McIntyre noticed his shadow on the rear screen when setting up this particular shot, so he reset the self-timer from two to 10 seconds to give himself plenty of time to get out of the way.  

McIntyre’s popular YouTube channel is a great source of information for landscape photographers, so be sure to take a look.

And don’t forget to watch the tutorial mentioned above, demonstrating how to shoot unique stylized images by embracing the blur.