Full time Landscape Photography? - Your questions answered

how's it going everybody so today we're going to be answering questions that came in on the community tab drinking copious amounts of coffee and answering your questions so that's good all right first question is from Michael he says magical shot how many shots did you use for the final image and did you use Tony Kuiper's panel so their image that he's referring to is this one this is a shot that we actually took on the first morning or the yeah I guess it was the first morning of my Oregon Coast workshop hands down some of the best light that I've ever gotten at this particular location this was a sunrise and sunrises in general are kind of tough on the west coast because a lot of times you know they're very obscured because you're looking West but in this case we're looking south and we got just a beautiful sunrise so this shot is actually a two shot exposure blend one exposed for the sky one exposed for the shadow information and the majority of the shot and it was kind of a tough shooting situation because this is pre-dawn so it's quite dark and we were kind of sharing a tripod of one of my participants came down the trail without a tripod so I was letting him use it for the most part so I didn't get a chance to shoot much so I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to get a nice long low ISO exposure the shadow information shot is actually shot at ISO 400 just because I as a 100 was not giving me enough detail of my shadow so I just cranked up my ISO a little bit did a three-second there a 30-second exposure because I didn't have time to do like a two and a half minute exposure at ISO 100 took the two shots blended in the sky from the darker frame added some contrast and noise reduction to that sky a little a little bit of boom which helped with the saturation a little dodging and burning a little bit of Orton effect about a bing bada boom this is what you get just it's one of those places that's really just set up for photography it makes you super easy honestly but it is a challenging exposure blend because of all of those trees on the sea stacks those trees you have to really pay attention when you're blending two different images together otherwise you can get halos around the trees and the challenging exposure blend but luminosity mask to the rescue we worked on this shot a lot during our post-processing sessions so Dan asked let's hear some beard grooming tips to get one is rocking as yours well I have no tips for you Dan because I probably have the worst groomed beard on YouTube the trick is just to never cut it keeps growing so Noah asked does your reliance on making a living via photography make it difficult to step away while in a creative Rhett also thanks for all the help I've learned more from you than anywhere else well first of all thank you no that's very kind and yes it does one of the challenging things about you know doing what you love for a living is you do it for a job and then when your job is done then what do you do when the very thing that you love to spend your time doing becomes your job as well it's really difficult to strike a balance I really struggle with getting away from photography because I love photography so much I I want to do it all the time but you can't do one thing all the time and be happy and I've really been struggling especially like this last two months or so because I haven't seen the amount of growth in my own photography that I have in the past I've really plateaued skill level wise and post-processing wise and because of my podcast and because of YouTube I I feel immense amounts of pressure to always be growing and evolving and always talking about it like I can't I can't really take a break because you people will forget about me it's it's a weird thing so I feel pressure to continue to do photography and continue to create videos about photography even when I don't have the self confidence about my own photography to really be doing that having a YouTube channel and having a podcast about photography requires an amount of self confidence that sometimes I don't always feel and I'm really bad in the way that I don't have a super sick thick skin so if I get just a couple mean comments roll in either here or somewhere else it hits me harder than it should and it hits me harder than it probably does other people because I not somebody that has just an amazing amount of self-confidence I know that I'm a decent photographer and I know that like you know I feel confident in that way but I'm still very vulnerable I've got that creative person's thing where sometimes I just want to crawl in a hole and hide from the world YouTube is not the best place to crawl into a hole and hide from the world so that that's where I feel the biggest pressure is when I'm not feeling super-confident it's very difficult for me to take a break and so that's that's where I've been lately because everything I do you know we're teaching workshops and and having this YouTube channel it requires a certain amount of self confidence and self-assurance that sometimes I don't always feel that's where I've been struggling lately Christopher asks I would love to hear an updated list of the top weather apps and how to use them also a breakdown to different types of clouds weather powder patterns and how to interpret them coming yeah this is an in-depth topic and I'll probably save this for a future video but suffice it to say the main apps that I use our weather bug for just quick easy stuff I love clear outside for cloud elevation predictions and cloud amount predictions and I also love storm because it's really easy to just pick a location and get the forecast for that location so if you're trying to you know figure out what the weather is going to be like an entire region that can be really useful because you can just quickly see the precipitation the cloud amount predictions as well as you know the forecast the five-day forecast for that area guy asks what was my process that permitted me to grow to a point of reaping a salary through photography and was it all fun no it was not all fun when I first went to became a full-time photographer I was working and you know a nine-to-five 40-hour a week day job sometimes more than 40 hours a week and then on the weekends I would go out and I would do family sessions and and senior portraits and real estate and even some weddings and it wasn't until I was made keen enough money during that weekend to sustain myself that I felt comfortable leaving my day job so if a person can make as much during the weekend as they can during the week of their day job that that gives them the self-confidence to know that you're gonna be able to make ends meet and I encourage people not to take a leap too soon utilize all of that extra time that you have to the best of your abilities and make sure that you can actually you know create a sustainable business with that extra time and only at that point do you take that full you know leap that next step of quitting the day job and trying to transition into full-time photography but when I first started I did everything I was families and seniors and real estate and product photography and weddings I shot a little bit of everything and it wasn't until later in my career when people wanted to know what I knew because I had reached a certain level of proficiency with photography that workshops and landscape photography became a source of income I sold some prints but not nearly enough to pay bills I was I would struggle to pay my power bill with the amount of prints that I was selling but that that stuff came later Sam asks what are my top three tips for editing images number one edit locally don't do just big global adjustments try to only affect the part of the photo that you want to affect so do that through adjustment brushes graduated filters radial filters or using layers and layer masks inside a photoshop tip to don't overdo it everybody it over does everything when they first learn how to post process and that's natural but try to find that area where you're not doing too much you want it to be stylized but not to the point of just cartoony and overdone and that's better that takes a while that's a long process but try not to overdo it then step three try to keep it semi natural you know they try to draw some lines in the sand with your own own post-processing for me I try to keep things you know in the realm of possibility like does this actually happen in nature do purple Skiles skies really exist I try to keep things in the realm of realistic yet stylized and have them convey a mood I try really hard to keep it the way that I experienced it and a lot of times you know I am I'm amping up what was there and I'm emphasizing what I liked and downplaying what I didn't like but I'm still keeping it in the realm of does it happen in nature does this ever actually happen and a lot of times those purple skies and crazy things that some people do with their post-processing does not actually happen in nature you got to draw your own lines in the sand of what you will and won't to try not to overdo it and work locally Domonique ass Nick I love your work you used to use the Canon 70 to 300 now you use Sony's 100 or 400 is that extra 100 millimetres of extra range useful at landscape photography I can't decide if I should go 300 or 400 at the far end I used to use a 70 or 200 but often times find it too short so you know honestly like the 300 to 400 area I probably don't use as often as the a meat of it be another 100 to 300 the biggest reason I went with a 100 to 400 on the sony side is because it's just an awesome lens it's sharper than you know the 70 to 300 there is a 70 to 300 or 80 to 300 on the sony side but it's not a super sharp professional lens 100 400 is I definitely find one a 100 to 400 far more useful than a 70 to 200 in the landscape photography world and to be able to get an extra 200 millimetres for not a lot of exercise is really nice so me personally that's why I went with 100 400 but I don't think if I was on the Canon side I wouldn't I would want the 100 400 over the 72 300 is a 70 to 300 is actually a really good lens and it's like way smaller than a 100 to 400 so it's kind of like a weight to usefulness balance like do you want that extra weight for a little bit of extra reach or is 300 enough and I think oftentimes on the Canon side just because of the quality of the glass but 300 is enough Adam asks any tips on cold and wet weather gear such as clothing jackets coats pants footwear for those of us that are little larger than average I don't know what you're talking about what brands and where to get them all so what's software besides Photoshop and Lightroom do I use even if it's just rarely okay so first of all Columbia I wear a lot of Columbia stuff just because it's it's a good brand it's got a lot of good gear but it's not like super expensive like an arc sterics Arc'teryx my favorite jacket is still my Cabela's guide wear jacket I wear that thing a lot I like it because it's got lots of pockets perhaps too many pockets its gore-tex and it's really warm so that jacket with like a puffy jacket underneath I'm good for really really cold temperatures and then if it gets too warm or whatever I can just take the under layer off I really like that jacket the most important thing it for me anyways is I've been trying to have an outer layer of gore-tex so I've got like a set of gore-tex Burgas rain pants I got those on Thomas's recommendation I really like those because they're easy to get on off because the zippers on the side the gore-tex is really nice just because it's it's breathable and it's waterproof if you get the kind of PVC style pant they like they get sweaty and yucky underneath when you're hiking very much in them gore-tex breathes a lot easier I have been experimenting with some different brands like for example I have an REI jacket that I really like because it's really lightweight gore-tex as well but the main thing is gore-tex everything for me that's what I like so my boots that I really love I'm actually on my third set of them are the Salomon GTX gore-tex boots they're waterproof all the way up to the cuff and they are really comfortable they last real well they're worth the money in regards to the software part of things I've been trying to experiment a little bit with capture one just because I get questions about it all the time and I should at least have some experience with some other programs other than Adobe stuff I've been struggling with capture one just because it's frustrating that it doesn't do what I want it to do how I want it to do it and I've got so much so much knowledge in one place with with Photoshop it's really hard for me to learn another program but I'm taking the time to try to learn some kind of workflow where I get started and capture one start editing in Lightroom because people in Photoshop because people say that capture one does so much better with Sony files so I wanted to give it a chance not having success with it though mark-ass how do i balance family stuff and photography trips and outings do I take my family with me sometimes sometimes I do but not nearly as much as I wish I did and that's actually one of the biggest challenges for being a workshop leader and having a family and a kid at home is trying to find that balance some people and I don't know how they do it they are gone more than I am which I'm gone a lot people that are gone more than I am if they have a family at home I have no idea how that works you know there's some photographers that I can think of that have kids at home but those kids must not like know their parents very well because they're gone all the time and that one of the challenges that I run into is the fact that because I'm gone so much with workshops because you know my I'm lucky enough that my workshops sell out a lot but because I'm gone so much during those workshops it doesn't allow me a lot of time to go out and shoot personally anymore because I'm spending all that free time going out and doing workshops and if I do go out on my own it's at the expense of family time and you know there are times that I can take take my family with me but it's it's never the same taking your family with you and trying to be productive photography wise because they don't enjoy camping in the middle of nowhere and getting up for sunrises and hiking into places as much as a photographer does and then they don't understand when you want to be out that location for three or four hours straight they get kind of bored I don't take my family as much as I wish that I could hopefully when my son is a little bit older I'll be able to take him to some of the scary places that I go to at this point no I can't take him to some of the cliffs and stuff that I will often go to so that's a that's another challenge I wish I had a better answer but I don't so Peter asks what photograph have I taken that makes me feel the most proud and I would say the best photo that I've ever taken is still that one wave photo with the birds everybody know I call it unrest in my chasing waves video I captured this one frame where the you know the birds are kind of swarming these waves as they're coming in we have these big beautiful waves crashing the ends of cliffs and then crashing against themselves and we also had amazing light at that at that point and I got probably the majority of my wave crashing portfolio that morning because the light was good the waves were good everything was just working out and I've been trying to live up to that photo ever since it's still probably one of the best photos I've ever taken and what budget-friendly starter lens would I recommend for astrophotography well it totally depends on what camera system you're on but oftentimes the answer is going to be a Rokinon 14 millimeter F 2.8 or maybe a Rokinon 24 millimeter F one point for if you are on like a crop sensor there's a samyang I think it's a twelve millimeter f/2 that would be a great little Astro lens as well so that's often the answer to that question next question is what is the best budget monitor for editing what's the best way to color calibrate it I personally use a Ben q 27-inch wide gamma monitor and I'm pretty sure that they make it more affordable monitor than this I and I know he says no more than 500 pounds I want to say that this monitor was actually cheaper than that but most important thing is to get something that is not 4k because the reason you don't want a 4k monitor when you're editing for the web is because when you go to web sharpen and you're you know you're looking at an image that is 2,000 pixels on the long end that's gonna be very small in your screen you can't properly determine what the sharpness the sharpening is going to be like on other people's screens because you're seeing a totally different pixel density a lot of times I'm always trying to get a two point seven K monitor which will also make it more affordable and that's great the biggest thing is you just don't want to go all the way up to like a 4 or 5 K for photo editing because you're seeing things in a different pixel density than everybody else is going to see them color calibration is super important so this is an X right Pro 1 or X right I won pro color calibrating is one of the most important things you can do for editing this will ensure that your colors are accurate your contrast is right and it's just super important it's worth every penny especially if you're printing or delivering if you're doing any kind of Pro professionally like delivered work you need to color calibrate so that's the x-ray I won Pro I think that's my second one of those that I purchased now they old one I I gave to a friend but these are super important for making sure that your screen is displaying stuff properly otherwise your colors could be off and you wouldn't know it the next question is this might be a silly question but a lot of photographers say that DSLR these days will do a great job when it comes to landscape photography just wondering if there's a point when you can take an entry-level or mid-level DSLR to the limits of its ability do you think there's an obvious threshold on where those lower end cameras just won't cut it anymore this is an interesting question I think that there's several genres of photography that really separate the the average cameras from the great cameras and usually it's mostly going to be sensors Astro photography is one of them you know if you take a camera that is amazing at those higher ISO s and then it tried to take that same exact photo with you know entry-level DSLR crop sensor it's going to be a massive difference just because they perform so poorly at those higher ISOs another genre is going to be like birds in flight or sports it's you can do it with a lower end DSLR but it's a hell of a lot easier with a DSLR or a mirrorless body that has a really good autofocus system and the lens matters a lot in both those scenarios you know the amount of light that little lets in how fast it focuses that stuff is going to be as limiting or as enabling as the camera is so you know there's a reason that a lot of that that more expensive glass and those more expensive cameras are worth the money if you're somebody that does those types of photography more and other types of photography it can tend to be worth it that's why sports photographers have you know $10,000 lenses because they couldn't do what they do with something lower end you there will always be the patrol on the internet that's like well you must be a terrible photographer because I get our standing photos with my kit lens the gear does not matter it's my preferred lens when I photograph my cousin's soccer games and children in the park those people are just keyboard warriors they don't know what they're talking about it takes professional gear to get some of that stuff there's other types of photography where like portraiture or just a static landscape where it's a low dynamic range scene where pretty much any camera is going to look the same another area where a good sensor is going to make a big difference are going to be things like dynamic range like if you're shooting directly into the Sun with moving subjects a lot of times you have to use just a single frame and the the amount that you can lift those shadows without having a bunch of noise really matters in those situations because you don't have the luxury of you know bracketing images and just getting one for the sky one for the shadows but better the sensor is in that situation the the more successful that end photo is going to be and that's why a lot of people love you know a lot of dynamic range on a sensor is because it makes their life easier because they can use one photo rather than three used to be you how to expose your blend three images together and a lot of people are getting away with just one now and that's because of the better sensors next question is I don't remember if this has ever came up with any landscape photographer so far but I think it's an important one to consider if you go full time landscape photographer how does this affect the relationships with others as a landscape photography you probably have to consider if you want to have children for example because one spends so much time on the road and if your girlfriend or wife understands this I get a feeling that no one really considers this before taking landscape photography seriously also if you could which aspect of landscape photographer would you remove what what annoys me so we've already kind of talked a little bit about that but you're absolutely right there's a lot of people that when you're 24 22 whatever you're not sometimes you're not always thinking about you know settling down and having a family but someday you are going to think about that and especially if you've already started a family of some kind landscape photography is going to put a strain on it because if you want to travel the amount that it takes to be a full time landscape photographer whether you're doing workshops like I do or whether you're just traveling in the world and selling the prints it puts a strain on on family for sure the biggest names in landscape photography a lot of times they're single or they they have a partner that understands but they're not going to have children it reminds me on my podcast I actually had art wolf on the show and I asked him you know how do you balance relationships with with traveling and photography like you do and he says and the fact is I'm single and I probably will remain single the rest of my life I I've got great friends from around the world but I don't live a life like most people I don't have cats or dogs though I love cats and dogs I just have to make those sacrifices to gain what I've got and so nobody's life is complete nobody's got a perfect life I certainly don't but what I have is a world of friends close friends and for me at this point in my life that's good enough and so I'm not making compromises with a spouse and I probably have never had a spouse because of that very very reason the most successful people in the world whether there are athletes or whatever they often have to sacrifice things like relationships and family to be where they're at and people have to ask themselves is that a sacrifice you're willing to make in your life are you going to be that serious about photography or travel because at some point if you're going to go all the way you're gonna have to sacrifice something at all at times it is family or at least the quality of the family the relationships you have with your family that are gonna suffer so for me personally I you know I try to travel one week a month so if I'm gone for one week and home for three I feel like that is an acceptable ratio to have a good relationship with my family but it's it's a tough one because if I'm gone for that week it means that I have to be home there in those next three and if the light gets good or the conditions get good it's really hard for me not to want to go shoot personal stuff at that point and so it's challenge and it's one that continues you know as when my son is older I'll be older too which kind of sucks that's something you never think about but when my son is older and out of the house I can travel as much as I want but also be an old man which that kind of sucks yeah it's it's something to consider for sure Marcus asked how did I begin to start running my own workshops and what it was the process that I took to make it happen so it was very organic like everything that I've done it's been organic it hasn't been part of some kind of you know sit down plan or you know five-year plan that I made for myself I did things that felt right and it felt like it was the right time to do it so my first two workshops that I ever were a part of I was just a co-leader for another some leading a workshop that gave me you know not only the confidence that like while people are starting to see me as capable of leading a workshop because they asked me to do it but also it gave me some examples of how other people do it and frankly how other people how it should not be done because there's great examples of how not to lead a workshop after that I got the confidence to lead a workshop in my own area where I live where I have lots of personal local knowledge of so I led my very first privately ran workshop in the Palouse which is where I live and so it was very easy for me to lead one there because honestly it was more of a tour at that point I was not like a super accomplished amazing photographer not that I am now but I did have a lot of local knowledge so I think the the first place that people can successfully lead a workshop is going to be in their own stomping grounds because you have that local knowledge to share and that gives value to the people that are coming on the workshop you shouldn't just try to you know lead a workshop somewhere where you don't have lots of local knowledge because you're not providing value to the people that come in on the workshop your first workshop should always be in your neck of the woods where you have that knowledge that way you're still providing value and then you can slowly start to ramp things up and work things out of your local area but for me it was very organic I would encourage people to go that route rather than you know sitting down creating in a five year plan because then you're doing things kind of for the wrong reasons at that point you're not doing it because you're you love it you're doing it from a sense of being an entrepreneur and trying to make a buck it'll never resonate with people if that's why you're doing it for one for two you're not gonna have longevity and anything if you're doing it for money the only way you're ever gonna have longevity is if you're at if you love it you know if you're doing what you love then you will have longevity because you love it and you'll be willing to go through those hard times because the good times are so good and you love doing what you do Sam asks what are some of the stereotypes I wish didn't this in the photography community first of all Instagram is a whole like Instagram started off as like a social media platform but now it's like a culture like I've literally met people that we're like no I've been really working on becoming a professional Instagram or you know yeah and it's just baffling to me that that's it first of all is that a thing people are professional instagramers and then later on I've met professional instagramers in them sure enough it's a thing sick tones bro sick totes yeah I don't know it's so that's one they'll hold the whole Instagram photographer the Instagrammer that thing is just it boggling to me they don't provide a service they don't even they don't provide anything really they don't provide value to anybody and yet they make a living doing it just going around taking selfies it's crazy to me another one would probably be there's always that one guy at like a you know let's say we're at a delicate arch in Moab somewhere where there's a lot of photographers all crammed into a small place and somebody not knowing not knowing the rules that are not rules goes out and to take a quick selfie in front of an arch or something and there's always the one guy that just freaks out it could be like two hours before a sunset and they're not even taking a photo but if somebody walks in there shot there they just start yelling and screaming and like can't you see you're in my shot those people are nuts and there's there's always one at those at those places and I and I always feel like I have to be the person that's like it's not the end of the world you know the good photo doesn't even come for another hour and a half so just chill out they're gonna be out of the scene in a second if there's always the very entitled people at those scenes and so if you find yourself feeling those feelings at that moment take a deep breath and remember that you know there's more to life than just getting that one photo like how you treat other people matters you know Karma's maybe a thing so just chill out and this too will pass there's more to life than getting that one photo about one evening it'll be okay so Chad asks how is the our floor holding up compared to the a nine with autofocus dynamic range and noise so been shooting with the e7r for for a month now or so and so I've kind of gotten a feel for how it is compared to both the arc art and a 7r3 which I just sold and my a 9 a 7 r 4 is not as good in low light as the r3 it was and it's definitely not as good in low light higher ISOs as the a 9 so the a 9 blows it away for high ISO performance autofocus it has all of the same stuff as the a 9 you know it can do all of the same algorithm stuff as the a9 but it doesn't doesn't push a lens yp9 the a9 is much faster and snappier has much better autofocus dynamic range of the r4 is good it's better than the art of the a9 but it's probably not as solid as the r3 was I think the sensor in general on the r3 was better than the r4 which is maybe controversial to say but I'm telling it how it is I think the r3 sensor was a little bit stronger a little bit better but I do like the extra resolution so if you're shooting ISO 100 don't need that higher ISO performance you're gonna love the sharpness and the crispness and the amount of resolution in the Arth r4 also I like the body better the most of everything I like better on they are for but I think you know higher ISOs and the dynamic range of the r3 was a little bit better let's take one more question let's take it from Darren who I've actually been on his podcast as the Irish photography podcast really good show he says is it the photographer that creates a photo or a scene that presents itself so if you had enough fall color leaves they're just like strategically placed all over a foreground you could totally make a photo where that's sarcasm don't ever do that that's that's a pet peeve of mine I think that it's a combination of both I think that sometimes a good photographer can go into a place with very very few obvious compositions and still come away with something I think Adam Gibbs is a perfect example of somebody that is really good at finding composition and a place where it's really really difficult I've really look up to photographers like that that just they can work a scene until until the scene does present itself but there are some some scenes that you walk into it and they're just there and the photographer knows how to capture it I think it's got to be a combination of both but I think that some people are really good at spotting composition in a place where it's not obvious but I also think that people that don't have that particular skill can totally work on it force themselves to go into a random forest or just a rent a place you know a seascape with no obvious you know sea stacks in the background or something and try to just work it and work it until they come away with something I think a lot of times it's it is a skill but it's a learn about skill it's one something that I'm working on all the time it's trying to go into a place where there's no obvious shot and trying to still come away with something and there's no better feeling to me than figuring out a place like that where you go in it seems like chaos and then you come away with something and that's one of my favorite things ever that's why I like you know going into those forest scenes is because I feel accomplished when I come out if I go to a tip Sulake with a Mount Rainier in the background and a reflection in the foreground it's almost so easy that I feel a little bit dirty a little bit soiled afterwards because anybody could have took that shot the only difference is going to be the light and the processing but there's something special about going into a place where there is no obvious shot and coming away with something all right thank you guys so much we're gonna try to do this every once in a while hopefully there's some nuggets in there that you guys care about if not sorry for wasting your time I've got some reviews coming up soon eh I've got to kind of filter companies that have sent me some stuff polar Pro has sent me there what are they calling it the summit landscape photographer kit I've got it around here somewhere seems like a pretty good filter system and then another count a filter company is sending me their kit so we're gonna be doing some reviews on that stuff and something that I'm implementing now that I haven't in the past is anything that a company sends me for review and I get to keep I'm going to be giving away to you guys so that way we get rid of the trolls that say oh yeah of course you're gonna say you like their filters because they gave them to you for free this will be a way of dealing with the people that say that stuff so once we reach a hundred thousand subscribers which could be just after the new year somewhere around in there I'm gonna be doing a big giveaway so we're gonna be giving away camera bags hopefully a couple tripods and definitely filters so stay tuned for that stuff and yeah that's about all I got for you guys thank you so much for watching and we'll see you in the next video take it easy everybody [Music]

Channel: Nick Page

Views: 32,606

Rating: 4.9645429 out of 5

Keywords: photography, landscape photography, nick page, travel, full time photography, going full time, full time landscape photography, landscape photography workshops, q and a, post processing tips, capture one, lightroom, photoshop, outdoor clothing

Id: c-2E9kwgCSE

Length: 37min 22sec (2242 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 19 2019