This week, we’re back from Jason’s Badlands photo safari, and we’ll share our experiences from the trip. You can see all of Jason’s upcoming safaris here.
Viltrox 56mm f/1.4 DX Lens for Nikon Z
Rick recently purchased a new autofocus lens from Viltrox to use wiht his DX format Nikon Z cameras. The 56mm f/1.4 DX lens in Z-mount offers a solid build, excellent image quality, and fast autofocus. It also has an aperture ring, which makes it fun to use with the Nikon Z fc mirrorless camera.
Celebrating 10 years of epic landscape photography in South Dakota
The first time I visited Badlands National Park, I was on a week-long photo tour with members of the Nikonians photographic community. It was 2005, and it was my first “real” photo experience with a digital camera, my brand-new Nikon D2x. I had two (!) 4GB memory cards in total, and I still remember the challenge of making the transition from film (fixed ISOs and slow shutter speeds) to digital.
10-shot hand-held panorama from Badlands National Park, 2020
Panoramic stitching software has gotten so good, that nowadays I’m able to capture many of my pano shots hand-held. This image is a composite of 10 vertical images captured with my Nikon Z7 and 24-70mm f/4S Nikkor Z lens. I merged the images from RAW in Lightroom Classic and then adjusted the resulting raw file in both Lightroom Classic and Photoshop using Color Efex Pro 4 to enhance color and contrast. The resulting file ended up at over 250 megapixels!
The South Dakota Badlands is the perfect setting for photographers who not only want to photograph spectacular scenery, but also learn the behind the scenes techniques for processing and workflow, including HDR, infrared, monochrome, and long exposures.
Each day, we will have the opportunity download and process our images together as a group, get critiques, and learn new techniques to make your photos into fine-art masterpieces. I will work with you to capture and process the best possible images into beautiful finished products. Our focus will be on the complete end to-end workflow of landscape photography, from composition to final digital or print output.
Badlands COVID-19 Update (5/28/2020)
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, I am implementing the following safe workshop policies for this event.
Workshop group size has been reduced to a maximum of six (6) photographers
All participants are required to have their own transportation to the field sites (no carpooling)
All field activities will required adherence to appropriate social distancing measures, including the use of cloth face coverings.
I will not conduct group classroom sessions indoors. Instead, we will share/review/critique images via videoconference, or outside if possible.
I will provide instruction to the group via video conference either during the workshop (assuming the internet at the hotel cooperates) or afterwards in private group classes online.
In the event the workshop is cancelled, you will be refunded in full
Final payment deadline has been extended to July 1, 2020
I love adding textures to my images to give them an entirely new and artistic look. I combined an Authentic Paint™ texture with one of my Luminescent Painterly™ textures in Photoshop CC to create this composite image. I think it looks kind of like an aurora!
