Natural Vision Photography

Snowy Owls!

2014-03-07T00:26:00.001-06:00

This week I saw and photographed my first wild Snowy Owls! It's an irruption year for Snowy Owls who are visiting us in good numbers. I have been watching the reports in my area, but with my focus being on landscape photography rather than wildlife, I wasn't prepared. I traded my long lens and crop frame camera for a full frame camera with wider lenses about a year ago.

Follow me on Google Plus!

2013-11-02T06:56:00.003-05:00

(function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })(); Over the past few months I've taken a concerted effort to use Google+ to share

Back to Banff!

2013-09-23T08:57:00.001-05:00

I have been reliving my experience in Banff National Park for years. I didn't think I would be going back so soon, but guess what. It's happening! Actually it's happening in just about a week. Banff is a special place for me for several reasons. It was where my wife and I went on our honeymoon 4 years ago. We stayed in the town of Banff and at the Chateau at Lake Louise. It was an incredible

Yosemite Star Trail

2013-07-09T09:06:00.000-05:00

I only had one night to photograph the night stars in Yosemite. It was basically my first time photographing at night period and I had my fair share of problems. This star trail was made from a series of photographs while I was trying to make a time lapse. Unfortunately my camera randomly stopped shooting while I was snoozing in the car. Since the time lapse stopped early, it only made for a

Lesson Learned: Time Lapse Part 2

2013-05-22T03:25:00.000-05:00

Nikon D600, Nikkor 16-35 f/4 @ 2 sec intervals While on my recent trip I had a tendency to shoot a little of everything. I would bracket some exposures for HDR, maybe do a panorama, even do a HDR panorama. I experimented with focus stacking, oh and long exposures. I got a pretty neat Hoya 9 stop ND filter. Oh and if the scene warranted those techniques, then why not a time

Lesson Learned: Time Lapse Part 1

2013-05-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

Time Lapses have become very popular over the last couple of years. Today there is easy to use software, built in time lapse or interval timers and plenty of online tutorials. All of this has made making time lapses more accessible to the hobby photographer. As soon as I realized this was something that I could do with my current equipment, I was ready to go. Well almost,

Back from California

2013-04-24T05:00:00.000-05:00

Nikon D600, Nikkor 70-700 VR, 6 shot vertical panorama It was my first trip to California and I have to say I was blown away by it's beauty. The diversity of beauty is what really has me jealous though. My wife and I did a kind of a mad dash across California. It was great to see the great diversity in landscape, but I really want to take a more focused approach next time. We

6 Tips for an Efficient Trip

2013-03-23T04:04:00.000-05:00

Can you feel the excitement? I can! Yes, I'm going to Yosemite in just a few weeks. Actually I will be visiting Yosemite as well as the California coast between Monterey and Los Angles. It feels a little odd, I normally put some sort of photo at the top of my blog posts. But I've never been to Yosemite or anywhere in California, so I don't have any photos to use. Well, I'll have to change that

Nikon D600; Initial Thoughts

2013-02-21T05:30:00.000-06:00

So I decided to upgrade from my Nikon D7000 to a Nikon D600. I blogged previously while I was thinking about getting an Olympus OM-D. As my obsessive personality requires, I did a good amount of research regarding the D600 before making my purchase. I'll go through what I've seen so far and what led to my decision. It should be noted that just because I decided to upgrade from the D7000 to the

Best North American Landscape...

2013-02-13T05:30:00.000-06:00

If you could go anywhere in North America for landscape photography... Where would you go? I've only really photographed a few areas, all of which I love. Minnesota's North Shore, Yellowstone, Grand Teton NP, and Banff National Park. I have an upcoming trip to plan, of which I only have four days. Should I go back to a place I've already been and refine my photography? Or should I

OM-D and Me.. Not Meant to be..

2013-01-31T05:30:00.000-06:00

I wanted to do a follow up to my previous entry with regards to the Olympus OM-D. See "Pondering Olympus OM-D" for that article. Previously I went through some of the features and thought about the many benefits of the OM-D. And the fact is, I really was pondering whether or not I should stick with my Nikon system or ditch it for Micro Four Thirds. I've always felt that my place in

Pondering Olympus OM-D E-M5

2013-01-09T04:58:00.001-06:00

The Olympus OM-D E-M5 is an interesting camera. Initially I wrote off the whole micro four thirds segment and thought it just a more advanced "Point and Shoot" camera. In my mind I placed them just below the entry level DSLR's. To be honest, I haven't given it much thought since. Enter this week's guest interview on This Week in Photo podcast. Scott Bourne who was an original host of

Happy Holidays from Natural Vision Photography!

2012-12-21T13:31:00.000-06:00

Gray Wolf, West Yellowstone, MT It has been a long time since our last post but we did not forget about our fans. We wanted to take this time and wish you all a safe and happy holidays!

Yellowstone Bull Elk

2012-08-16T14:02:00.000-05:00

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 300mm f2.8 w/TC14e II @420mm, ISO 640, f4, 1/800 Last weekend I watch Yellowstone Battle for Life on TV. I couldn't begin to tell you how many times I have watch that documentary. Every time I do watch it, I get the itch to go back out west. So instead of jumping in my car and driving 1,200 miles I sat down at my computer with a big cup of coffee. I wanted to do

Minnesota Loon

2012-07-17T09:06:00.000-05:00

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 300mm f2.8, f6.3, ISO 400, 1/2000 I took a quick break while fishing in central Minnesota last week. Every time I go fishing loons seemly circle boat. On this fishing trip I had my camera next to me in the boat hoping for a close encounter with a loon. I thought this would be an easy shoot, but once again I was wrong. Every time I pointed my camera at a loon it would

Hayden Valley, Yellowstone National Park

2012-07-05T17:23:00.001-05:00

Nikon D7000, 12mm, f13, ISO 500, 1/125 Since I'm on this black and white kick right now, I thought I should share this photo. Hayden Valley is a place inside the park that I have alway wanted to visit. Due to wild fires in during my first visit to YNP I wasn't able to go. Last fall, I was able to spend some time there. It didn't disappoint! Beautiful landscapes, wildlife, and

Oxbow Bend, Grand Teton National Park, WY

2012-06-25T10:35:00.002-05:00

Nikon D7000, 24-70mm @48mm, ISO 200, f10, 1/100, Three shot HDR Every time I get an inch to go back out west I open up my Lightroom catalog and look through my previous trips. Each time I do this I find another photo that I really like and wonder why I past it up the first couple of times. This image is of Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton National Park, WY. I have many, many shots

Man's Best Friend

2012-06-18T19:38:00.001-05:00

Nikon D7000, 12-24mm @19mm, f8, ISO 200, 1/640 Here is a photo of my best bud Dodger on his 4th birthday! Every year I take Dodger to his favorite park on his birthday for a photo shoot. It never takes me long to get a shot that is different than the previous year. Dodger has a personality of his own, if Dodger were in school he would be the class clown for sure! Since my

Memorial Day

2012-05-27T07:33:00.002-05:00

Nikon D7000, 12-24mm @12mm, ISO 200, f10, 1/320 Memorial Day From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the American holiday. For other uses, see Memorial Day (disambiguation). Memorial Day The gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery are decorated by U.S. flags on Memorial Day weekend. TypeNational DateLast Monday in May 2011 dateMay 30 2012

Gone Fishing

2012-05-16T15:03:00.000-05:00

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 300mm f2.8, ISO 1250, f4, 1/400 It's that time of year again for the boy's of Natural Vision Photography. Summer became a different beast last year with Chad and I fishing in bass tournaments. This year is no different, with 9 scheduled tournaments this summer and the bass fishing opener coming in a few days, our photography once again is going to take a back seat. We

Photo of the Week! Gooseberry State Park, MN

2012-05-06T09:39:00.000-05:00

Nikon D7000, 12-24mm @14mm, ISO 100, 1/8, f22 Here is another image from Minnesota's north shore at Gooseberry Falls State Park. Gooseberry is a fun but challenging location to shoot. There are water falls, moving water and rock formations to photograph around every turn. The challenge is to find an area where there aren't people in your shot. But again, the challenge in photography is part

Photo of the Week! Three Sisters pt.II

2012-05-02T07:55:00.000-05:00

Nikon D7000, 12-24mm, ISO 100, f16, 1/4 Here is the "other side" of my last post of the Three Sisters. This area of northern Minnesota is simply beautiful anytime of the year. This trip was before all of the snow had fully melted and before there were leaves on the trees. I usually make my trip to the north shore in the fall during peak colors, but I'm glad I was able to make an early trip.

Photo of the Week! Three Sister's

2012-04-22T08:31:00.000-05:00

Nikon D7000, 12-24mm @12mm, ISO 100, f16, 1/8 My buddy James was walking around this area while I was shooting the moving water in the back ground. Once I was finished with what I was doing I saw this clump of trees leaving over the rock. It was much more difficult it find a good angle and get a shot of this scene than I had expected. Stay tuned for next weeks Photo of the Week where I did

Photo of the Week! Follow the Rainbow

2012-04-15T08:19:00.000-05:00

Nikon D7000, 12-24mm @20mm, f16, ISO 100, 1/15 Here is my second photo from my trip to Minnesota's north shore. This photo is from my favorite State Park, Cascade River. This is the main falls for the park. It's extremely close to the camp ground (300 yards). The park system has built areas for visitors to sit and relax.

Photo of the Week! Gooseberry Falls State Park, MN

2012-04-08T08:06:00.000-05:00

Nikon D7000, 12-24mm @14mm, ISO 100, F22, 1/5 I finally was able to get out and shoot last week! If has been an extremely slow 2012 photography wise thus far. So when a co-worker of mine wanted to hit up the north shore of Minnesota I couldn't resist. We packed up there car at O'dark 30 and hit the road. We started at Cascade River State Park before making our last stop here at Gooseberry