Sometimes the best time to grab your camera is when most people consider the weather bad.

Fog, rain and even snow can make great photos.

I really like the effect of light through fog. It allows you to see the beam of light clearly. It makes a very powerful photo.

Rain also has its own strong points.

Rain tends to increase the natural color saturation. Wet objects often seem to have deeper color and more contrast in photos. No wonder a common technique in the movie industry is to hose down a road or parking lot with water before shooting a scene.

Of course bad weather also has its own photography obstacles.

Water (in any form) is not great for your camera. You need to keep the camera dry and make sure you do not get water spots on the lens when shooting. In a pinch, a plastic sandwich bag placed over your camera can help keep it a bit drier. Use a rubber band around the lens to hold the bag on. There are also many weather and waterproof cases available, so expensive and some very affordable.

Cold weather can affect camera batteries. A spare battery kept warm close to your body can become an important cold weather accessory. Tripod legs seem to become the coldest objects on earth. Wrapping foam around tripod legs and make a tripod much more comfortable to touch in cold weather.

Always be careful when  moving your camera from a cool temperature to a warmer or more humid environment.

This will cause condesation on or inside your camera and this can lead to corrosion and shorten the life of the camera or break it altogether. The can happen from cold outdoors moving indoors or even from air condition indoors to hot or humid outdoor weather in summer. Keep your camera in a plastic bag for a period of time for changes in the environment like this. No bag handy? Leave it sealed in your camera bag.

The photography above is the Wind Point Lighthouse in Racine, Wisconsin.

A few days earlier, I had been to the lighthouse during the day doing a portrait for a friend. I suddenly had a desire to photograph the lighthouse in fog. Just a day or two later, the weather was rain and fog. Looked to me like a short trip to the lighthouse would be perfect.

There is a lot of light shining on the lighthouse itself.

This caused a slight problem. The additional light was being pickup up by the fog and made the lighthouse light seem much dimmer by comparison. The beam from the Wind Point Lighthouse on a much higher axis and appears washed out by the ground lights. I found as I got farther away it appeared a bit brighter. I ended up nearly standing in Lake Michigan.

I ended up using a Canon 24mm-70mm zoom wide open at an aperature of 4.5.

I used the bulb setting for the shutter and held the shutter open while the beam from the lighthouse swept a limited arc. This kept the ground light from washing the beam out. This was about 5-6 seconds.

The image above recieved  very limited adjustment in photoshop.

Mostly a bit of color adjustment to compensate for the three different colored light sources. I also did a little dodging and burning with the tools in Photoshop to bring a bit more of the beam. Contrast was adjusted in Canon Digital Photo Professional as well as some additional noise reduction in addition to the noise reduction done in camera in the Canon EOS 5D DSLR. A tripod and remote release were also used.

There are many ways a photo like this could be enhanced in Adobe Photoshop.

Multiple exposures or the same exposure processed differently could be combined. Using layer modes and layer masks the beam could be brightened or added to. This would allow the beam to be even brighter while keeping the ground lighting darker. This technique can be even more effective if multiple exposures are made with this purpose in mind. Digital photography has added many more options than photographers had in the past.

I am very happy with the way the image of the lighthouse looks now.

Of course, I may decide to do more with it later. But for now, I like the way it was captured in camera.

How do you get great photos of outdoor Christmas decorations?

Well, your digital camera can help make it easier to get those pictures of the Christmas lights on your house to turn out.

There are 3 things you will need to get great photos of outdoor Christmas lights

1. A camera that can shoot long exposures.
2. A remote shutter release.
3. A tripod.

First, you need a camera that will allow you to shoot at long shutter speeds.

The first photo with this post is of New Glarus, WI. The shutter speeds I used while taking photos that night were from about 4 seconds to over 15 seconds long at an aperture setting of F11. The images of Michigan Aveneue Christmas lights in Chicago were from 1-5 seconds long at F11. You will need a camera that will do these long shutter speeds. It also helps if your camera has a noise reduction option for long exposures built in. In this case, I used a Canon 5D at ISO 100.

You will need a way to trigger the shutter without shaking the camera.

Ideally, you will have remote shutter release for your camera. If you do not, you can use the self-timer function.

You will need a tripod.

A tripod is one of the most important accessories you can purchase for your camera. The sturdier, the better. The trouble with photography in cold weather like this is those metal tripod legs get really cold. Some tripods come with foam to cover parts of the legs. A nice feature if you cannot afford the more expensive new composite tripods.

A tripod was also very handy while I slid down a steep, icy sidewalk in New Glarus, WI. A city that resemble Switzerland, not only in arcitucture, but in hilly terrain.

I suggest using your camera in aperture priority.

Set your aperture for resonable depth of field. Then, vary your shutter speed according to the light. This way, you can keep your composition in focus while you experiment with exposure with the shutter speed.

You should bracket your exposure.

With night-time photography, it can be hard to get detail in shadow areas while not overexposing the highlights. This is the trick. To find the best exposure for the scene you are photographing. Your cameras meter will give a good starting point. I usually shoot a stop over and under. A quick look at the preview screen can give you an idea if you are close or which direction you should bracket more in.

Using a RAW file format is ideal in this situation.

Using a RAW file format will allow you to fine tune the exposure a bit more. Also, you can adjust the color balance to your taste much better later while you are looking at a high resolution image on your computer. You can also make a bracket exposure from one RAW file.

For further improvement, you can use Photoshop to increase the dynamic range in your photo.

The latest versions of Photoshop CS2 and CS3 can combine different exposures of an image to get the best highlight and shadow detail a put it in one image. There are other programs that will add this feature to earlier versions of Photoshop. You may also be able to do this by hand. Have several bracketed shots on a tripod, or taken from a RAW file are needed for this technique. The photos in this post did not use this technique.

It might be a good idea to put a plastic bag over your camera to protect it if there is snow.

The photograph of the Christmas lights on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Il was shot during the first real snow storm of the season. After shooting for about 10 minutes, I looked down to discover I and my camera bag were coated with wet snow. Keep a towel ready for when you get back to the car to wipe excess moisture off your equipment.

Cold weather will also cause batteries to weaken faster.

Spare batteries can be kept in a pocket closer to your body so you can keep shooting. Check your camera manual for an idea how cold weather will affect the batteries. It can cut normal use in half.

Try to start taking photos of the Christmas lights right after sunset.

The leftover light at dusk will help balance the bright Christmas lights and fill shadows. This will provide more detail. Of course, sometimes it can be too early. Just after I spent 45 minutes photographing the lights around New Glarus, WI and got in the car, the lights on the church were finally turned on.

Photographing Christmas lights is a fun challenge.

Even better is to finish it up with a drink of something warm with a loved one while you warm up afterwards.

A video on how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements to crop and size a photo before emailing it.

You crop images the same way in Photoshop as well as many image editing software programs.

Why crop and size a photo before you email it?

In the video below, the image was origianally over 8MB as a Jpeg file. This would take a long time for the person you are emailing to download. It would take even longer to send it. Nearly all the time, these images are only looked at on the computer. There is no need for a big file. Croping and resizing your photography before you email it is a nice thing for the people you are sending it to.

Why not just shoot a lower quality image setting?

I recommend that you always use the highest quality image setting your camera offers you. This way, you will be ready when that once in a life time image occurs (it happens a lot more than once in a lifetime). You can always make a photograph smaller but if you do not have the detail to begin with, you cannot make it larger. Keep your camera at the highest quality setting.

I made the video below to show both cropping the photograph and compressing it.

This is nearly the same in Photoshop as it is in Photoshop Elements. I am also using an early version of Elements. Later versions work the same way. The save for Web feature is somewhat unique to Adobe products. It is very convienient as it allows you to see the effect of compression as you try to make the image smaller.

In the following video I take an 8MB file and shrink it down to about 17k.

This makes it very fast to download. If you think someone might want get a print of the photo, let them know you can send a higher resolution version if they want to print it.

I hope you find the video useful.

Online Videos by Veoh.com