This is a great article written by Justin W. Moore, that I found that definitely needs to be included on this site.

Water is life. The existence of nearly everything living is critically linked to its availability. In and near the streams, rivers and oceans of our world, Nature thrives. It is no surprise that such a powerful force in Nature is so often depicted by the outdoor photographer. This tutorial provides basic tips that will help you capture the beauty of water in your photographs.

Use Slow Shutter Speeds

Slow shutter speeds create a soft, artistic portrait of water. Generally, shutter speeds that are 1/6 of a second and slower will yield the best results. A majority of my waterfall photographs fall between 1/4 second and 3 seconds of exposure. The key here is to dare to experiment and not be afraid to shoot a lot of film or frames. You never know what shutter speed is going to render the waterfall the way you see it in your mind’s eye. Needless to say, you will need your tripod when making these long exposures. It’s just one more reason to save your money and buy a good quality, full-featured tripod!

Watch Your Exposure

Why? Because waterfalls usually reflect a lot of light that is going to fool your camera’s built-in exposure meter unless you compensate. I usually find that spot metering off of something neutral in the same area (and thus in the same light) works best; rocks, tree trunks and grass are usually good candidates. To learn more about properly exposing your photographs, see my tutorial Commanding Exposure.

Arm Yourself with Some Useful Tools

Your camera equipment should include a circular polarizer and/or a neutral density filter. A polarizer can increase the overall color saturation in the scene as well as decrease your shutter speeds by 1.5 to 2 stops (a good thing if you find yourself battling a rising sun with an overall increase in lighting). Slowly rotate the polarizer to witness the effect it is having on your scene. Depending on the lighting conditions and your position relative to the sun, you may or may not decide to use it. A neutral density filter can also be used to reduce light input by up to 2 stops in most cases (depending on the strength of the filter).

Use a Slow Speed Film / Low ISO Setting

Using a slow speed film or low ISO setting (ISO 25 to ISO 100) on your digital camera will enable you to photograph waterfalls with a variety of long exposures. Slow speed films like Kodak’s Royal Gold 25 or Fuji’s Velvia will also reward you with incredibly fine grain and outstanding color saturation.

Take a Deep Breath

Don’t let the sheer beauty of the scene get you so excited that you forget everything else I’ve mentioned and come home with a roll or two of underexposed disappointments. Believe me, I’ve been there! Being close to something so beautiful and grand can sometimes lead to temporary lapses of good photographic judgement. Think about every exposure. Bracket your shots and don’t fall prey to mindless “machine gun” shutter clicks.

Use of a circular polarizer can allow you to attain a slow shutter speed for scenes such as this one of Pedernales Falls. A polarizer also removes most of the glare from the scene.
Kodak Gold 100 exposed for 1 second

The purpose of this article is to discuss a variety of filters that can be very helpful in getting great shots! There are a lot of filters out there, but I am just going to focus on the basic filters that I recommend everyone to use.The first filter you have to buy is the skylight(or UV) filter. It serves a couple of purposes. One, it protects your lens from scratches and anything that might hit it. It is better to replace a filter for a few dollars then replace a whole lens, which can be expensive! Secondly, it will absorb ultra-violet rays and blue rays, thus your picture won’t be looking to ‘bluish’, especially with your outdoor pictures taken in the shade. This is the filter you keep on your lens at all times. I only take it off when I want to use another filter.

The second filter that you should get is the circular polarizer. This is a fun filter to have as it has a variety of uses. 1) It will darken the sky into a more rich blue and increase the color saturation of the scenery. 2) You can control how much reflection is coming off a window or a body of water and 3) you create a nice contrast in your b&w images. You control how much an effect the filter has by rotating the filter to the desired effect.

The two filters I just mentioned are the two most important to have if you only want a few filters or are on a budget. The rest of the filters(below) are for the artistry and fun of photography, and can be invaluable to the artistic photographs, but not a matter of life and death to have.

Medium Yellow (Y 2) This will absorb ultra-violet and blue rays and will give you a nice strong contrast in b&w photos. This is highly recommended for scenery photos where there is a lot of distance in the background.

Medium Orange ( YA 2) This will absorb the violet, blue and green rays and will give you a stronger contrast in your b&w photos then the yellow filter. Also great for sunsets, see the photos attached to this article for an example.

Medium Red (R 2) This is one of my favorites!! This will absorb the violet, blue, green and yellow rays. This is used for infrared photography and also has the strongest contrast of the other filters for b&w, it is very dramatic and would make what would be an ordinary b&w photo into art.

Multi-image This is fun to play with as you create multi images of the subject. There are a lot of different kinds out there, so look around and find which one you like the most.

Close up Filters This is where you can get really close to your subjects, like a flower, insect, coin, etc. They normally come in a set of 3 filters, a +1, +2 and either a +3 or a +4. And they are cheap! You can also use more then one on your lens to get even closer. They recommend that you don’t use more then 3, but I have used 5 filters stacked together, of course I was also using a ringflash.

Cross Screen This filter will add flares to any light source. For example street lights in a night scenery. Or the sun. It normally comes in three varieties, a 4x, a 6x and 8x.

The above mentioned filters, I have and recommend to anyone that wants to have a little fun with their photography. The above are also not expensive, and if you go to a used camera shop or eBay you can pick them up for a few bucks each. There are other filters out there but I highlighted these because every photographer (amateur or professional) should have them in their camera bag.

Since there is a nice blanket of winter snow covering a lot of the country, I think it is appropriate to put up this article with tips on shooting in the winter. This article includes beginning photography tips for equipment, lighting, exposure and wildlife.

For some, winter is the time to play. There are easily as many winter sports and activities outside as there are summer adventures. Instead of hiking the wilderness, there’s cross country skiing and snow shoeing. Instead of dirt bikes and ATVs, there are snow mobiles. Downhill skiing replaces water skiing, and for a great number of people, there is simply the appreciation of the different and beautiful settings outdoors.

Winter photography can go hand in hand with all of these activities as long as you follow a few simply guidelines to keep your equipment working, and modify your techniques to compliment the change in outdoor conditions. While photography in winter is different than other times of the year, a bit of understanding can make your efforts produce more dramatic and in many ways more memorable photos than the typical summer shots. Here are just a few tips to remember:

1. Carry fresh or freshly charged batteries - Cold climates are rough on batteries. The first thing to do is make sure your batteries are fresh or freshly charged, and if possible, carry spares. Your camera and especially the camera’s batteries will not work as well as in the milder months of the year. Remember that winter photography means dealing with an outdoor environment that’s cold and harsh. If your camera is small, of the point and shoot variety, consider carrying it in an inside pocket if you’re going to be outside for any length of time. If the camera is a larger, SLR type camera, think about carrying the batteries in an inside pocket until needed. For either type of camera, if you’re shooting consistently, rotate spare batteries in and out of your inside pocket to keep them warm.
2. Take advantage of the sun’s lower angle in the winter - Most fine art photographers will tell you that they prefer to shoot either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. There are two reasons for this preference. First, the colors are more “dramatic”. What they mean is that the colors are more toward the yellow end of the spectrum, which is considered “warmer”. Second - and this is the relevance to winter photography - when pictures are shot early and late in the day, the sun is lower, which creates more dramatic shadows. In winter, shadows are more pronounced for longer periods of the day. Even when the sun is higher in the sky and the colors appear to be more normal, the shadow angles will be larger, producing more dramatic effects. Try to make your shots with the sun situated across the subject rather than in front of or behind. This will increase the detail, especially in snow or ice scenes, and will lend depth to the picture.
3. Use fill flash when shooting people - Rather than place the subject in total front or back light, use a fill flash. While the cross lighting mentioned above is a great technique for scenes, it’s not particularly flattering for people. Some cross lighting is desirable, of course, but using it as the principal light is not the way to get compliments from your subjects. Almost all point and shoot cameras have a small flash built-in, and they’re great for exactly this kind of situation. Instead of the fully automatic camera mode, most of these little digital wonders have a mode that forces the flash to operate. This is the situation where it’s necessary to make the flash come on, since there will normally be adequate light to shoot without it. If you use a SLR, put your flash on the camera and use it. The exposure should still be primarily from available light, but use the fill to just remove the harsh shadows caused by the natural cross lighting.
4. Compensate your exposure for snow and ice in a scene - If you’re camera has the ability to set the exposure, set it to OVEREXPOSE by one stop (which means one “f” stop) when a scene is primarily snow, ice, or otherwise white. Camera exposure meters try to make things gray. That’s the industry standard. What this means is that every exposure by a camera’s meter tries to set the scene at what the industry has determined to be the color gray, at a reflectance of 18%. For most normal photography, this works quite well, but for snow and ice - where the scene is predominately white - the scenes tend to be a bit underexposed. The snow looks a little “dirty”. This will allow the camera to make the white features brighter than the usual 18% gray reflectance, and produce more white in the image.
5. In Winter, shoot a scene as soon as you see it - When you discover a shot, don’t try to come back later because there’s a good chance that it will have changed. Shoot it now. Winter scenes are dynamic. What exists now may not be true in a few minutes. An overnight ice storm can bring unimaginable beauty in the morning, but be gone and muddy by noon. When shooting in winter, it’s important to take the shot when you see it.
6. Don’t unnecessarily stress the wildlife - When you stop along the road to photograph an animal and that animal gives you more than a passing glance, you’re probably too close for comfort. When winter comes, the weather of course gets cold and the food source for most animals gets really scarce. This is especially true for the kinds of animals you’re likely to encounter, which are ungulates (deer, elk, and so on). As any cattle rancher can tell you, the way these animals stay warm - and therefore survive in the winter - is to ingest food. The more they have to eat, the better ability they have to stay warm.Most animals also have a fear of humans. When humans are around, they are weary and spend time watching potential predators (the humans) when they should really be focusing their attention on acquiring food. For this reason, photographing wildlife can be especially dangerous to the animal in winter.You should move away and seek a better choice for your picture. When we shoot wildlife in winter, we nearly always work in national parks, where animals are used to humans and don’t pay any particular attention. That way, we’re able to get close enough to obtain a decent photograph, but not take any of the animal’s precious time away from finding food.

Whether your particular winter activity involves fine art photography, or you are a beginner photographer attempting to capture a part of your life you want to share with friends and relatives, winter photography offers some interesting challenges and impressive scenes. Remember to take your camera when you’re out, keep it warm, and bring spare batteries. The main thing of course, is to get out and see what’s there.