I like this location, Crews Lake Nature Reserve, because birds fly low close to the water and at the level of the pier, giving me a nice view of the birds.
The above picture is a good example of that. The background is totally blurred, making the bird pop up nicely. You can't ask for more.
Lately I have been shooting more landscapes than usual even when I still using full time my 100-400 lens with an 1.4x Extender. Probably because I'm rediscovering the good features hidden in Luminar Neo specially designed for Landscape photography, Here is my favorite picture from last weekend.
According to The Photographer, these are the best DSLRs you can buy in 2025:
The Canon 5DS. This camera, released in 2015, offers a full-frame sensor with 50 MP. It was the highest-resolution camera Canon had ever released.
The Nikon D850. This camera offers 4K video and has been considered, by many, one of the best cameras ever released by Nikon.
These cameras are so good that, even today, their price is higher than that of some of the newer mirrorless models from the same companies.
You can use the metering mode of your camera to achieve certain looks in your pictures. For example, in the above picture, I used partial metering mode. In this mode, the camera exposes your main subject correctly by measuring the light in a small central area of the frame (usually about 6–10% of the viewfinder). Because in this case the subject is brighter than the surrounding space, the background becomes overexposed, resulting in a black background. You can get even more dramatic results if you use spot metering.
The key point for achieving a dramatic effect is to have a subject that is strongly illuminated or brighter than the surrounding areas.
Here is another example.
There are two pictures that I like from last weekend. The two of them are landscapes that I edited using Luminar Neo, a software that does a wonderful job, especially with landscapes.
Luminar Neo is especially good at playing with the light in the whole landscape area, creating a 3-dimensional feeling.
This is a picture I took recently, and I love it so much.
Every once in a while, you come across a tree that feels less like part of the landscape and more like a character within it, a silent elder with stories etched into its bark. This incredible tree, captured in the heart of Florida’s wilderness, is one of those rare giants. Its sprawling limbs twist and stretch with a confidence that only comes from surviving countless seasons of wind, rain, and sun. The curved trunk, thick roots, and moss-covered branches give it a sculptural presence, as if nature shaped it with deliberate artistry.
Florida is home to many of these remarkable trees, especially ancient live oaks. Unlike the straight, towering trees of colder climates, Florida’s oaks often grow wide and low, their branches bending with age and weight, creating dramatic shapes like the one in this photograph. The humid air, sandy soil, and subtropical climate create perfect conditions for them to thrive for centuries. Some live oaks in the state are believed to be over 500 years old, weathering storms and standing strong through Florida’s ever-changing landscape.
To truly capture the full beauty of this tree, this image was created using a technique where multiple photographs are stitched together. By taking several overlapping shots and blending them into a single frame, the final image preserves the tree’s immense size and intricate details in a way a single photo simply couldn’t. This method allows the viewer to experience the entire scene, its scale, texture, and atmosphere, with clarity and depth, almost as if standing there in person.
This tree feels like a gateway into another world, a reminder that beauty in nature often comes from resilience, adaptation, and time. It’s the kind of scene that makes you pause, breathe, and appreciate the quiet magic tucked away in Florida’s forests.
Capturing a tree is like capturing a soul. I sometimes imagine them as quiet humans, silent witnesses to the stories of our lives.
Selecting the wrong shutter speed can result in blurry photos or motion blur.
The other day I was at a local park looking for birds to photograph, and accidentally I changed the ISO setting from Auto to ISO 125. I didn’t notice the change at first because it was a sunny day, and this setting combined with Aperture Priority was giving me shutter speeds of around 1/60 to 1/125, so the pictures in the viewfinder looked well exposed to me. What I didn’t notice was that the pictures were not as sharp as they should have been.
When I’m shooting wildlife, I use Aperture Priority and Auto ISO, and I set the minimum shutter speed to 1/500. This shutter speed helps ensure that my 100–400mm lens captures sharp images most of the time. It doesn’t matter that both my lens and camera have image stabilization; I’m not using a tripod, and that introduces movement that can cause motion blur.
This mistake cost me a few pictures, which I deleted because they were not sharp enough. The moral of this real-life story is to check your settings at the start of your shoot—especially if you are getting paid for it.
The above picture could have been sharper if it were not for this error. You can notice the blur at the tips of the wings.
P.S. And people still think that a good camera and lens will always result in good pictures. But if you don’t know how to use those tools, they won’t result in good pictures at all.
