Capture the Moment!

Here are all my posts on photography, covering techniques, trips, research, exhibitions, talks and workshops. Watch out for my latest article every Saturday.

I’ve also written dozens of articles for Expert Photography and Camera Reviews.

If you’d like to contribute a guest post on any aspect of photography, please email me at nick@nickdalephotography.com. My standard fee is £50 plus £10 for each dofollow link.

Note: Some blog posts contain affiliate links to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Shutter Speeds for Action Shots

Choosing the right shutter speed for action shots is very important: too fast, and the animal will appear frozen; too slow, and you’ll end up with a blurry mess!

Here’s a quick guide to recommended shutter speed settings for different subjects and types of shot together with a few illustrative examples.

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The Slow Pan

I took this shot on an Exodus trip to Kicheche Bush Camp in 2018 with Paul Goldstein.

Paul’s a great fan of the slow pan to heighten the sense of energy in action shots, and I’m now his disciple!

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The exposure triangle

Let’s go back to basics! What is the Exposure Triangle? Why do you need to know about it? How can it help you?

In this article, I’ll answer all those questions - and more!

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Every picture tells a story: Bear Gills

I’m a wildlife photographer, and this is one in an occasional series of posts about my best photographs. I’ll tell you how I took them and break down the shot into the idea, the location, the equipment, the settings, the technique and any post-processing necessary.

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Lightroom shortcuts

I’ve just taken part in the Lightroom Virtual Summit, hosted by Matt Kloskowski and Dave Cross, and it inspired me to write a post about Lightroom shortcuts. I learned a couple of new ones while watching their series of videos, and I’m happy to share them all with you.

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What I have in my camera bag

I’ve taken pictures in 26 countries on all seven continents, but the only place I’ve visited regularly is Africa.

This list of what’s in my camera bag is therefore geared towards a safari trip, and it would obviously look a bit different if I was snorkelling in the Galápagos Islands or going white water rafting!

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How to enlarge a photo

Gigapixel AI is the ‘ugly duckling’ of the Topaz Labs suite of software programs, but it can be just as useful as Sharpen AI and DeNoise AI if you need to enlarge an image, say for printing.

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How to reduce noise

I’ve recently discovered the Topaz Labs suite of software products that includes Sharpen AI, Gigapixel AI and DeNoise AI. This article discusses how best to use the last of these.

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How to sharpen an image

I use Adobe Lightroom for editing all my images, and it’s a very good program, so generally I have no complaints.

However, there’s one thing I never do in Lightroom, and that’s sharpening.

The problem is that ‘sharpening’ in Lightroom is not really sharpening at all. It’s contrast. And there’s a big difference.

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How to do low light photography

Every problem is a fact plus a judgment.

Low light might be regarded as a ‘problem’, but it depends how you look at it.

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How to improve your black and white wildlife photography

I don’t take any shots in black and white. And nor does anyone else, for that matter, because modern DSLR RAW files are always in colour. If you want to create black and white images, then you simply have to convert them in Lightroom.

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How to use exposure compensation

Whenever I teach people about exposure compensation, I always find myself using the example of a leopard in a tree: “The sky behind is bright, but the leopard is dark, so you have to use a stop or two of exposure compensation.”

The idea is to get the ‘right’ exposure for the subject when the camera is being ‘fooled’ by the bright background, but why does this happen?

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Nine ways to make money from wildlife photography

The obvious question for a lot of amateur photographers is ‘How do I make money from wildlife photography?’ The answer is that I’m still trying to work it out! All I can do is tell you what I’ve done myself and give you a few ideas.

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How I Photograph Birds

When people ask me if I take pictures of birds, I say, “Yes, I do – if there aren’t any animals around…!”

I’m only joking (mostly!), but it’s true that there are a lot of ‘birders’ out there, and getting good shots of birds – particularly birds in flight (BIF) – is not that easy.

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How to Shoot a Bear

Brooks Falls is a waterfall in Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska, and every July around a million salmon try to jump it in order to get back to their spawning grounds - and the brown bears are there to meet them!

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Microstock upload procedure

I earn around 35% of my photography revenue from stock agencies and microstock sites. I started off submitting all my content at once to around 25 agencies, but I’ve gradually changed my workflow.

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