It was 26 degrees in the Hide the other afternoon but I was toasty warm sitting in the TideWe Heated Chair! This battery-powered bun burner is the ultimate in photo Hide seating in my book. Legs are fully adjustable for height. Chair swivels making it not only comfortable but flexible as our subjects move about. The armrests are padded too which is a nice touch. But the best part is the seat and/or back are heated lasting on full for nearly four hours. You can get it from many locations but I went direct. I got the best deal and they ship super fast (watch that your order from other outlets includes the battery). This might seem like a little over the top, and in a way, it is. But when you’re in the Hide for a couple of hours on those cold days, I love the totally luxury, TideWe heated chair!

Yellowstone Nat’l Park, WY is a spectacular location in the US for magical landscapes and critters! In this short video, I go through some of the basics of when, where, and why you want to shoot at this location. Enjoy!

One of the past challenges in shooting stars is setting the lens to infinity. Well, that problem was solved with a setting in our mirrorless Nikons and I didn’t even know it! In prepping for last night’s starry light shooting, the topic came up. Roger had just watched the latest NPS tech talk where he learned that if you go to the Setup > Save Focus Positon and set it to OFF, when you power up the camera, it will focus the lens to Infinity (must be a Z lens, no mechanical issues and not affected by extreme heat or cod) automatically. I instantly tested it and it worked. Went and shot tonight and darn if it didn’t work perfectly! Goes to show the importance of keeping up one changes is important, I was lagging behind. Infinity couldn’t be any simpler!

Color management just as the name suggests is all about bringing home the color to tell YOUR story. Most have a decent handle on color management for stills, but video, that’s a totally different animal! Speaking for myself, that’s the first thing I tackle when editing video cause it takes me the longest to nail it. That’s where the Calibrite ColorChecker Passport comes in. Just like when shooting stills, slipping it into the frame for a couple of seconds has saved me hours in post. It not only makes it simpler, I’ve been learning how to shoot it better in camera from mistakes the Passport corrects in post. It’s a small thing, slips into your shirt pocket and has video and still colorchecker in one compact case. If you are having issues / challenges with color balance, color management, you can nail it with the Calibrite ColorCheck Passport!

This is a continuation of a series of videos, some simple advice that might help move your photography forward. It’s like any advice you might receive, you gotta take it in and decide if it works for you. If it does, perfect. If it doesn’t just forget it and continue on :-)