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.

How to choose a photographic trip

I’ve been on plenty of photographic trips, but I’m quite picky about the companies I use.

In this article, I’ll provide a few different perspectives on how to choose a photographic trip that’s right for you.

Wildlife photography ideas

In these troubled times, I thought I’d give every wildlife photographer out there a chance to fantasise about a few dream destinations around the globe.

Whatever your passion, I’m sure there’s somewhere out there that would provide a great photographic getaway - once we’re all allowed out to play again…!

Lockdown ideas

Yes, I know that most of you wildlife photographers out there would rather be in the Masai Mara than stuck at home in suburbia, but I thought I’d just make a list of a few things you could do while waiting for lockdown to come to an end…

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.

How to shoot a leopard

Leopard sightings are pretty rare, but I went on an Exodus photographic trip to Kicheche Bush Camp in summer 2018 with Paul Goldstein, and that was when I had virtually all my best sightings of leopards.

Here are a few of the lessons I learned from that experience.

How to Shoot a Polar Bear

I went on an Exodus photographic trip to Spitsbergen in summer 2014 with Paul Goldstein, and I saw around a dozen polar bears.

Here are a few of the lessons I learned from that experience.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Guest post: The work of a photographer

Photography is a field that is gaining more and more popularity every year. It's no wonder that almost anyone can take pictures today - all you need is a mobile phone with good optics.

Post-processing in Lightroom

There are two main steps I go through to edit my images:

1. Rating and adding metadata

2. Preparing for upload to stock agencies