Your camera offers variety of shooting modes, each tailored to shooting different types of images, and it’s important to make the right choice if you what the best results possible. This tutorial from the folks at Light Benders Visuals is targeted at wildlife and nature photographers and provides solid pro advice for getting the job done.

Instructor Brent Hall says there are three mode of primary interest to wildlife photographers among the various options available on most cameras. Hall ignores fully automatic and program modes and concentrates on those that “enable you to shoot with more intent.”

The episode begins with a discussion of two commonly used semi-automatic modes, Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority. Hall says Shutter Priority is the most basic and easiest to understand—especially for less experienced photographers or those who aren’t fully acquainted with their cameras.

Hall says Shutter Priority makes a lot of sense for wildlife photography because subjects are often in motion, like birds in flight. By controlling the shutter speed and letting the camera set an appropriate aperture you can freeze action and make sure moving subjects are sharp. He also explains how EV compensation factors into the equation.

The next option is Aperture Priority mode, and Hall explains why it’s not typically his first choice. That’s because it’s the opposite of Shutter Priority in that you set the f/stop and leave it up to the camera to choose a corresponding shutter speed. That can work fine with stationary subjects, but not so much when it comes to freezing movement.

The advantage of Aperture priority is that it enables you to thoughtfully control depth of field. This can help isolate subjects from busy backgrounds by using a small aperture that provides a narrow range of focus to make the primary subject really stand out from the surroundings. Another factor to consider is that lenses with long focal lengths inherently provide less depth of field than wider lenses.

Another problem with Aperture Priority mode is that “cameras are kind of stupid” in that they don’t know what you’re shooting. Thus, if you’re using a long lens and set a narrow aperture, you’re likely to miss focus because of insufficient depth of field.

One solution to this problem, available in some cameras, is to dive into the menu and set a minimum shutter speed for the task at hand. That way the camera will increase ISO instead of choosing a shutter speed that’s too slow for optimum results. Doing this is also a good option when shooting hand-held in less than idea light.

As you may expect, shooting in Manual mode is the third option Hall recommends for wildlife photography, and it’s the one Hall prefers for reasons he explains. While this can initially be a bit more involved than either of the two semi-automatic modes, it become quite simple after a bit of practice, and there are specific benefits to be had.

You can learn more about Hall and view his impressive imagery by paying a visit to his website.

Most photographers would rather be out shooting than sitting at the computer editing their work, which is why it’s great to discover a fast and effective processing technique that makes a big difference in your results. That’s exactly what you’ll learn in the straightforward tutorial below from the popular Photoshop Café YouTube channel.

Photographer Colin Smith is one of our favorite image-editing instructors and in this nine-minute episode he explains how easy it is to use Clipping Groups to get Lightroom-style masks in Photoshop. By following his advice you’ll be able to give images some really nice lighting, texture, and pattern effects.

Smith uses a portrait of a pretty singer to explain and demonstrate how Clipping Groups work. He begins by making a selection around her shirt, using the Lasso mode within the Object Selection tool panel. He then provides a keyboard shortcut to copy this selection to its own layer. Normally he’d use a mask, but he initially takes this approach for the sake of illustration.

He then grabs an interesting shape from his library and fits it within the shirt, simply by clicking on an arrow that appears on the thumbnail in that layer. Then you can drag on the shape and place it exactly where you want it on the model’s shirt and modify the Blending mode to suit your whim.

Next Smith makes a Clipping Mask of the aforementioned shape to add various lighting effects to the subject. He then duplicates the background to isolate the singer from everything that appear behind her. He recommends using the Cloud option if you’re connected to the Internet because doing that provides better results.

Now Smith demonstrates how to apply two types of lighting among the many possibilities. The first is a Gradient light, while the other relies upon painting colored lights with Adjustment Layers and Clipping Masks—just like you’d do in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw.

The technique you use depends upon what you have in mind, and Smith walks you through the simple step-by-step procedures for getting the job done. Both methods offer a lot of flexibility for expressing your creative vision, and these methods quickly work wonders for all sorts of photos beyond portraits.

Smith’s instructional YouTube channel includes a wide array of image editing tips that anyone can master, so be sure to pay a visit and explore what he has to offer.

And be sure to check out the recent tutorial we posted from another image-editing expert, explaining how to use a new Photoshop tool that employs Gradients to create photos with attention-grabbing lighting effects.

There are a bunch of misconceptions about ISO settings that can hold you back when shooting in the field. Some photographers always shoot at ISO 100 in attempt to avoid noise, while others choose the highest setting available to eliminate camera and subject movement when photographing motion.

This approach may yield average results in average situations, but that’s not what we’re after and there’s much better way. In the tutorial below you’ll learn how to “stop using the wrong ISO” and gain a full understanding of the best setting to use for the specific task at hand.

Instructor Mads Peer Iversen is a Danish landscape and wildlife photographer and a really good instructor who begins this episode episode with a statement that belies a premise of the Exposure Triangle: “ISO is a bit different from aperture and shutter speed as it does not influence the exposure of your photo.”

If that doesn’t sound quite right, it’s all about context as Iversen explains how he and other pros use ISO to advantage when shooting different genres of photography. He begins with a quick primer on how ISO works and its relationship to aperture and shutter speed before delving into the finer points of the topic. Along the way he provides clear examples using images he shot on a recent trip to Iceland and Greenland.

Simply put, ISO refers to the sensitivity of your camera’s sensor to light. Iversen interprets this concept  to support the notion that ISO controls the brightness, not the exposure, of your photos. So according to his nomenclature, “When talking about exposure we’re referring to the interplay between shutter speed and aperture—the only two settings that determine how much light hits your sensor.” Now his view makes more sense.

He further explains that if the combination of your shutter speed and aperture can’t deliver a properly lit photo under prevailing conditions, then you can raise ISO for an accurate exposure. Relevant circumstances include dim conditions, a desire to freeze subjects in motion, and the necessity of stopping down the lens for maximum depth of field. Another key consideration, according to Iversen, is “whether you’re shooting with an ISO variant camera or an ISO invariant camera. He explains what this means and how it affects the settings you choose.

Iversen the uses examples of photos shot at high sensitivities to illustrate why the tradeoff between high ISO and noise has become less relevant thanks to recent developments in camera technology. At the same time, Adobe is revolutionizing denoising capabilities to make older cameras much more relevant.

Iversen wraps up the lesson with an explanation of how to get perfectly noise-free images when shooting at night. You can find more tips and tricking by visiting his popular YouTube channel.

On a related note, don’t miss the earlier tutorial we posted with another pro explaining what to do if you’re struggling with shooting good photographs at night.