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If you search for photo editors online, you will discover that there are dozens of them.  Including the word "free" does little to thin the list as many of these offer a trial period after which a payment is necessary.  Sometimes it is a single payment, but often it is expected that you will have to pay monthly. The three pixel editors I have included above are totally free, although two of them allow you to pay a subscription to unlock even more features and benefits.  Of the three, only GIMP is totally free, and has been available since 1996.  It has, of course, been updated, and is current as of 2024.  It works on PCs and Mac computers, but not on iOS or Android devices. Of the three, GIMP probably has the most Photoshop-like interface and has quite a learning curve to it.  Since it is open-source (anyone can add to the programming), it will undoubtedly evolve over time, as it has since it was first released. Pixlr is an online editor, which means that y...

I took two photos of the moving water, the left with Live Image turned off and the right with Live Image turned on.  Then I altered the right image in Edit mode. One of the problems I have with smartphone cameras is the inability to control aperture and sometimes even shutter speed and ISO.  Android allows you to have some degree of control over shutter speed and ISO in Pro mode, but the inability to alter the aperture has a very similar overall effect.  iPhones, on the other hand, give you almost no control over any of the exposure settings (exposure compensation excluded), but it does have a pretty neat feature that simulates a long exposure. Left:  the top and bottom of the iPhone camera screen. Right:  Part of the Edit screen from iPhone A feature that creates a Live exposure allows you to capture a short 1.5 second video of a scene.  I created a loop; you can see the video below. iPhone's edit mode allows you to take the live image and convert it int...

I used my iPhone to photograph the grasshopper (note:  he was missing one leg). I have done a lot of macro work over the years.  This includes work with macro lenses, bellows, reverse-mounted primes, extension tubes, macro filters, and even a number of microscopes (I once worked with a professor developing prints from his electron microscope - that was pretty cool).  I have been using my smartphones, both Android and iPhone, to explore how their macro feature compares to full-frame and APS-C crop sensor cameras.  This is what I found. Side view of the same grasshopper, 3x macro - this was the full image. If you are interested in getting a close-up of something just for a record, or perhaps to show a friend, a cell phone with a macro feature will manage.  How much of an enlargement you can get depends on the phone and OS.  For example, my Android has a macro mode, but it creates only a 5mp image and you have to use the 0.5x lens.  My iPhone 15 pro can d...

Left: artificial aperture set to minimum          Right:  at maximum Smartphone cameras are incredibly popular and take over 90% of the photos captured on this planet today.  They do have a few weaknesses that their larger brethren don't have, one being the ability to alter depth of field. To take a portrait on a DSLR or mirrorless camera with the background out of focus, I would pick a prime lens (85 mm) with a low minimum aperture (f/1.8).  With the background a good distance away I would have a nice shot of the subject and the background would be pleasantly blurred and exhibit a pleasing bokah. You can't do this on a smartphone, although the lenses are primes and the apertures are relatively low (f/1.78 in the above photo).  The problem is that the small digital sensors use very low focal length lenses to obtain decent fields of view.  In this case, the focal length was a paltry 6.76 mm.  There is so much depth of field at this f...

A few of the animals I have photographed using camouflage. If you want to survive in the wild, you have to be good at something, and more than one thing is better.  Sometimes it is in reproduction; many insects produce thousands of offspring with the hope that a few will survive to breed.  Others rely on speed that is used to elude predators or to catch prey.  Then there are those involved with chemical mechanisms that kill or harm would-be predators.  They often boast bright colours as a warning to others, "Eat me at your peril." And then there are those that are all but invisible.  Organisms that blend so well into their environment that they are almost impossible to see.  If it wasn't for their movement, you wouldn't notice them at all. Such was the case for all the creatures I photographed above.  The sole was photographed at the Maui Marine Center; I didn't even see it until it started to swim.  I found the crab while visiting Fiji.  Eve...

I have used both Android and iPhone cameras over the years and have discovered a few things.  I understand why compact point-and-shoot cameras have pretty much disappeared from the market, although there is still a place for cameras with long focal lengths such as Nikon's P1000.  Smartphone cameras have all the ease and most of the capability of their stand-alone brethren, and then they offer a whole lot more. Having said that, I have found that both platforms have limited abilities in the control offered.  Much of that has to do with the fact that they have a fixed aperture (often around f/2), which is great for low-light situations but problematic when a need to stop down is required.  While Android offers some capacity to pick ISO and shutter speed independently, that is usually not usually true of iPhone.  Even when the capacity is there, the experience could be better. I think that the cameras are built around people whose interest in photography is limited...

The spider I found is a western black widow spider, one of three species of black widow that occur in North America.  The fact that this one has another red patch on the back of its abdomen above the spinnerettes tells us that it is an immature individual. The one thing that people know about black widow spiders is that they are extremely poisonous.  Their venom is something like 15x more toxic than that of a rattlesnake.  The saving grace is that there is very little venom injected from a black widow bite than what a rattlesnake can deliver.   The good news is that black widow bites seldom lead to death.  You are more likely to suffer nausea, muscle pain, and swelling around the bite.  Symptoms usually last only 12 hours or so.  Death may be a result in people with compromised immune systems or in the very young or the elderly.   In 2018, it was reported that there were 1015 cases of people bitten by black widows.  Of those, there ...

Kootenay Mountains and the Kootenay River, photographed Aug, 2006 Obtaining a sharp focus on your subjects is always important.  This tends not to be a problem if the subject is strictly in the foreground or background.  Most camera and lens settings will accommodate this with little trouble.  However, when both foreground and background components need to be in focus, more care must be taken. There are a few variables that you can control to improve the depth of field in an image.  Each of them can be manipulated to maximize what is in focus and what isn't in an image.  I take a moment to explain each one and what you can do to improve the overall depth of field. 1)  Focal length - A lens is defined partly by its focal length, what mm value it has.  We typically think of the three categories:  wide angle, normal, and telephoto.  Wide angle lenses provide more depth of field at any given aperture than normal or telephoto lenses do.  We...

I am teaching my situational photography class for the next 4 weeks. As many of you know, I teach photography classes.  They are each of my own design and I have offered about 10 different classes based on curriculum over the years.  This year I am offering four.  They include: Cell phone cameras and how to get better photos Situational photography - wildlife, macro, portrait, and landscape DSLR and CSC (mirrorless) cameras How to photograph birds (possible) Each course comes with a book that I have written and regularly update, I am on the fourth edition of a few of them.  I also have taught Advanced Photography, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop, Photography for Teachers, and a few others to boot.  Since we have moved to Kelowna I have had to introduce myself to the community and develop a client base, something that takes time. I have always enjoyed teaching, writing, and photography.  The trifecta has coalesced into the courses I offer that have been develo...

Mission Creek Kokanee spawning channel in Kelowna One of the great challenges of photographers has always been getting a shutter speed that is fast enough to prevent motion blur from camera movement.  That value is not consistent as there are two main variables at hand.  The focal length of the lens plays the greatest role and the second is the stability of the photographer holding the camera. There is a rule of thumb that has worked for most of us.  We call it the one over the focal length rule.  This pertains to full-frame (35 mm) cameras without any form of vibration mitigation technology turned on.  The minimum hand-held shutter speed of a  200 mm telephoto lens is 1/200th of a second according to this guideline.  For a 50 mm lens, it would be 1/50th of a second, and an ultra-wide angle lens of 16 mm would be about 1/15th of a second. If you were very stable (think a doctor's hands), you could reduce that value by a stop, and if you were somewhat s...

Top left to right:  Nikon 18-105mm (DX), box, 35mm f/1.8 (DX) Bottom:  Nikon 24-85mm (FX), SB9000 flash, 16-36mm (FX), 55-300mm DX) Photography is one of those things that changes rapidly.  The electronics, materials, formats, designs, and capabilities are constantly advancing.  I used to own a D600 and then a D750, both FX Nikon bodies, and I have a lot of lenses that worked well with them.  I have since sold those bodies and am now using an FX mirrorless camera (Z system) and have dedicated lenses for it.  Although I can use my FTZ adapter to go from the F format To the Z format (FTZ), I prefer to use the lenses designed for the system. In case you got a little lost there, let me explain some of the letters: F - Nikon's standard bayonet mount, all Nikon lenses made since 1972 fit on this system. Z - Nikon's new mirrorless format bayonet mount, the baseplate is much larger and allows for an improved lens design. FTZ - F to Z adapter lets you use an F mount...

Although we don't have the same explosion of fall colours the way eastern provinces do, there are places locally where you can find satisfying hues dotting the landscape.  Yesterday, Kathryn and I drove about Kelowna looking for vibrant displays that could be captured by my camera.  We found several. The reason that many western provinces lack the same fall colour schemes of their eastern brethren is because most of our trees are conifers, also called evergreens.  The only places you can find fall fiery reds and intense oranges are where people have intentionally planted deciduous trees.  Oak, maple, birch, and aspen must be cultivated around these parts if you want colour. We found one place with a long driveway bordered by maple trees (left image).  I got out of the vehicle and strolled a short way down the path, clicking happily as I went.  Not wanting to disturb the owners, I quickly made my way back.  We found a horse ranch that had some nicely co...

Man-made waterfalls photographed on Kona in Hawaii The way the world takes photos has evolved over the last two centuries, but it has never been so easy for someone to take a picture as it is today.  Cell phones, with their convenient size and respectable shooting abilities, have changed the way the average person snaps an image.  The statistics don't lie.   World-wide, there are some five billion images taken each day, 94% of them are taken with smart phones.  It is estimated that we will be capturing two trillion photos annually in the next coming years.  Yet, for all the advantages, there are certain significant limitations.  One of them has to do with a fixed aperture set at a very low value. Apertures control the amount of light coming into the camera and depth of field as well.  Traditional cameras have a variable aperture in the lens that allow you to control both these attributes. Most cell phones have apertures that cannot be changed, and...

I found the above ruins while visiting Kona in Hawaii.  It was a church built in 1861 by the Rev. John D. Paris near  Kahaluu-Keauhou on the island of Kona in Hawaii.  The church was built on the temple used by the natives as a place to worship their gods.  The previous site was  Ohi'amukumuku Heiau .  Heiau, in Hawaiian, means temple or place of worship.  Amukumuku was a warrior that was dishonoured because of his practices in ceremonial battle; the word later came to mean deceitful. The original temple was built prior to 1776 but was fully restored that year as the temple for the war god Kaili as the tribe prepared to go to battle with the natives of Maui.  It was not unusual for human sacrifices to be offered at these locations. The church building and pastor brought Christianity to the region and building on the original site would irradicate any visible heritage left over from the old ways.  The building itself was made of lava rocks (b...

Photographed on Oahu at the Polynesian Cultural Center Before humans showed up, Hawaii had exactly 1 native species of lizard.  That's not too surprising, given that Hawaii is almost 2500 km from the nearest continent.  It is understandable how birds and fish could make the trip, and even some mammals (1 bat and 1 seal species), but many terrestrial lifeforms could not survive the crossing, save mankind. There is one species of lizard endemic to Hawaii, the Azure-tailed skink (click here to see more), which is now largely extinct.  The species was thought to be extinct but has since been rediscovered along ocean cliffs on Hamakua. This happened in 2017. Since our arrival, the number of established breeding lizard populations has gone from 1 to 19 and counting.  You can see the list of non-endemic lizards in the image below.  I have seen three of these species. I saw at least three individuals of the brown anole and a few of the gold dust day gecko (click here to...

The banded coral shrimp, sometimes called the banded cleaner shrimp, is a small, colourful crustacean that lives in warm waters around the world and can be found in popular diving places such as Hawaii and the Caribbean.  They form mutualistic relationships with numerous fish species that allow them to clean them of ectoparasites.  The shrimp are rarely found alone and work in groups, setting up cleaning stations where vertebrates may come and be relieved of burdensome invertebrates. What I found even more interesting was that these cleaner shrimp will also remove dead tissue from injuries that facilitates healing in the wounded fish.  The shrimp will willingly inspect all outward parts of the host fish and will also examine the gills, mouth, and oral cavities.  They will remove food stuck in the mouth as well, functioning somewhat like a living toothpick. The cleaner shrimp tend to be nocturnal, hiding in darkened areas (often coral) until evening when they emerge t...

A windy day at the bow of the Ruby Princess It was a formal evening aboard the Ruby Princess and I wanted to take some photos of my wife, Kathryn.  I have many of her, so I thought that today would be good to do something different.   It was windy out, and the charging ship increased the relative wind speed to near gale proportions.  As we approached the front of the craft, her hair started to fly wildly all about.  This was the place. On manual exposure mode with a low ISO, I set my 24-70 mm lens to its highest focal length and its lowest aperture (f/4).  The day's brightness required that I shoot at 1/600th of a second, too fast for the external flash I was using.  So I turned on the high-speed-synch (HSS) feature on my camera so the flash would fire continuously through the exposure. Given the blustery nature of the day, I knew that a single photo wouldn't be enough.  I took quite a few shots; you can see some of them on either side of the cent...

A worker cleaning the Grand Hall at 3:00 in the morning I salute the hard working men and women of the cruise line industry.  They come from all over the world, each one looking to find work, possibly a career, and to help both themselves and their families have better lives.  It isn't easy, and many have to work long hours and are isolated from the passengers and passenger-areas aboard the ships.  They don't partake of the luxuries experienced by the guests and have a limited amount of free time.  But most of them wouldn't trade it for any other job they have ever had. I was photographing the Grand Hall aboard the Ruby Princess early in the morning before the place was crowded with guests.  While there, I met a gentleman cleaning floors and took some shots of him, asking permission first.  I also got quite a few photos of the hall itself without people; I used my 14-30 mm ultra-wide angle lens on a full-frame camera to get the three-story plaza in my viewf...

Lori with the first known baseball (left) and a Polynesian warrior (right) When the Polynesians arrived in Hawaii around 1200 AD, little did they know that they would soon be credited with the invention of baseball.   Besides chickens, the natives brought breadfruit plants with them.  The fruit grows to be quite large, up to 6 kg, but harvested early, the small fruit is hard and fits conveniently in your hand.  This was only one component of what was needed to complete the tools needed for the sport. The second component was, of course, the bat.  The Polynesian boy is shown holding a traditional  Niho Lei-o-Mano war club carved from Kao trees.  Popular for its ability to dissuade uninvited suitors from visiting daughters, it also had the ability to launch a hand-sized breadfruit a considerable distance.  It didn't take long before the breadfruit (bf) ball and club bat became well acquainted. Catching the bf ball was somewhat difficult; the course...

Lori and Kathryn at the Polynesian Village on Oahu The left and right photos above were taken with the exact same camera settings, only the left included light from a flash.  You can tell that the girls are in a shaded area as the tree above them reduced the available light.  I exposed for the background and took two photos, one with (left) and the other without (right) flash. In order to keep the aperture as low as possible (to maximize flash distance), I needed to use a shutter speed faster than the synch speed (1/200th of a second).  My camera has a high synch speed (HSS) function that allows the flash to fire at shutter speeds higher than the normal maximum synch speed.  By turning it on I could then shoot flash at shutter speeds higher than this.  Nikons use a menu feature called Auto FP.  You can see it in the image below. I shot the photo with a shutter speed of 1/640th of a second.  By turning on the auto FP mode the camera allowed me to use fl...

Black tip reef shark photographed at Maui Marine Center, Hawaii. The above photo was shot with an ISO of 12,800, a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second, and an aperture of f/4.  Although high ISOs allow you to use decent shutter speeds in low light, the cost is digital noise.  This can be somewhat mitigated using in-camera high-ISO noise reduction filters and applying noise-reducing filters in post.  Even then, there is a price to be paid. Fine details tend to be erraticated when high ISOs are used, and noise-reduction software does little to bring it back.  What the filters do help with is the pixelated appearance and random colour noise that is associated with its application.  The end product is certainly better, but still not as good if shot under better conditions. Is it possible to take the same photo with a lower ISO?  The answer is yes, but again at a cost.  Like Newton's third law of motion that states every action has an equal and opposite re...

I have photographed black-crowned night herons in Alberta and British Columbia, and for the second time now, in Hawaii.  While they are not terribly shy on the mainland, they are practically gregarious on the islands.  The term night heron comes from their tendency to eat after dusk, but on Hawaii, I have always found them foraging during the day.  It seems that they have forgotten who they are when off continent. When I researched the Hawaiian population, it seems my observations were right on.  The Hawaiian Department of Land and Natural Resources states that these birds are "gregarious" and "diurnal" unlike continental relatives.  It turns out that the night herons are indigenous to the islands and, as such, may have developed their own set of behaviours given isolation from North America.  Regardless of where they live, they are predatory birds that consume a wide variety of prey, both aquatic and terrestrial. This year has been a banner year for me in ...

Domestic chickens gone wild in Hawaii Nobody will deny the allure of chickens.  Ubiquitous producers of eggs and meat, they are the most familiar of all farm animals.  Some are even pets.  Free-range chickens have the protection of the farmer and run of the limited range to forage as they like.  Hawaii, however, has taken the concept of free-range to a whole new level. The Polynesians brought many plants and animals with them when they settled Hawaii around 1200 AD.  Among these was the Red Jungle Fowl. These birds are the stock our modern-day domestic chickens were derived from.  So, it's not surprising that, when Caucasians brought chickens to the islands much later, the birds interbred. Part of the reason that the domestic birds escaped captivity is because of hurricanes that hit the islands in 1982 and 1992.  The resulting carnage facilitated the release of the fowl and the chickens interbred with already established native populations.  Altho...

Spotted moray eel hiding in coral, photographed at the Maui Ocean Center in Hawaii The number of endemic species of fish in the Hawaiian waters is truly amazing.  Of the 200 or so species of moray eels that exist world-wide, about 80 of them live around Hawaii.  Morays are fish, although they have snake-like bodies.  There are a few interesting facts about these creatures that are worth noting. Moray eels have a second set of jaws at the back of their throat.  The main jaws (the ones you see in the image above) grab the prey, but the second set of jaws extend forward to help bring the food toward the stomach.  These, called pharyngeal jaws, are well-hidden and not normally visible; I found an interesting video on the subject here . Moray eels can be poisonous in several ways.  In some species the mucus in the mouth is toxic, but the risk of it causing serious health complications is low if a human is bit.  The greater risk in the bite of a moray is inf...

Non-breeding plumage of Pacific Golden Plover The thing that stands out about this bird is the beautiful golden feathering woven through its dorsal area.  Looking closely at the feathers, you see that individual feathers are dark brown with golden scalloped edges.  I enlarged a section so you can see the pattern for yourself. I enlarged the back of the plover to allow a better look at the feathering. The pacific golden plover is one of the few birds that migrates to Hawaii.  All plovers travel remarkable distances, but I find that this one species does so over open ocean with no landmarks at all for thousands of miles.  It takes them three or four days to travel from their breeding grounds along the coast of Alaska to Hawaii where they overwinter.  They are not birds that swim and must remain aloft the entire time.  The kicker is the way they do this. A solo plover would likely die making the attempt.  However, if a group of them align in a V-formation...