Dan Carr

Founder of Shutter Muse, full time photographer and creative educator. Dan lives in the Canadian Yukon, but his wanderlust often sends him in search of images all around the world to meet the needs of clients and readers alike.

Behind The Shot: Yukon Ice Cave

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On a recent trip to the Yukon I captured this photo of a gigantic ice cave that exists year round near Haines Junction. Local photographer Matt Jacques and I set off on this little adventure, expecting a relatively easy hike, but mother nature had other plans! The trail gradient was relatively shallow, but in the second half of the hike we were blasted in the face by incredible arctic winds that had the gusting strength to knock you off your feet. Sometimes you had to really lean into the wind to keep moving forwards! Once we reached the cave I …

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My New Kayak: Boréal Design Compass 140 Ultralight

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This week I picked up a new 14ft touring kayak so that I can reach a few new places to photograph. I’ve had my eye out for something like this for a couple of years but when I heard about the Ultralight series from Boreal Design, I knew I had found my ship! The Compass 140 was already a great kayak for my purpose, with plenty of storage fore and aft, as well as a day hatch and a wide enough cockpit that I could keep a camera and super telephoto lens between my legs. But the Ultralight version of …

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Sometimes I Forget That I Have This Power in My Pocket

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Last week my partner and I were walking our dogs around the local lake in the evening, when we spotted this wonderful patch of floating vegetation. A rain shower had just passed through and droplets of water still clung to many of the leaves. Despite the flat light from an overcast sky, the colours were vibrant and the whole scene stopped us both in our tracks. Not having my DSLR with me, I decided to grab my iPhone instead. I took three of fours shots, then opened my favourite one in Lightroom Mobile and processed it right away before posting …

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What’s The Best Way to Recover Deleted Photos?

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If you accidentally delete some photos of your memory card or hard drive, all is not lost, even if you used the “Format card” command. A lot of people don’t realize that when files are deleted, all that is destroyed is the “map” that tells your computer (or camera) where to find the data for the photos. File recovery software can perform scans of your drives or memory cards and rebuild that “map”, essentially bringing the files back from the dead. Yes, even if they have been removed from your trash! One thing to note about this process is that …

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Canon 1D X Mark II – A High ISO King!

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Regular readers will know that these days my camera of choice is the Canon 5D Mark IV because I love its versatility. It’s not as fast as the 1-Series cameras, and not as high resolution as the 5DS R series, but balance of these things makes it a great option for someone that shoots a very broad range of subjects. That said, I have a number of projects on the go at the moment which might benefit from a faster frame rate camera that’s able to capture the moments between the moments my 5D Mark IV is currently capturing. The …

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A Reminder About Aerial Photography Tips!

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There’s nothing quite like flying over incredible landscapes! I recently flew over Whistler with Sea to Sky Air to get some photos and footage for a new project. I was processing some photos today, and it reminded me of a hugely in-depth tutorial I wrote about this topic a while back when I flew over the same area. You can find the giant aerial photography tutorial on Shutter Muse. Just a couple of months ago, I wrote a quick note here on my blog about the best lenses for aerial photography. If you can make it happen, getting up in …

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Wow! Coolest Way to Store Photos?!

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I had to post a couple of photos of this! The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD. I actually wrote about it a while back when it was first announced, but I just got my hands on one today and it was even smaller than I though it would be! It comes in 256GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB variations at the moment, and the smallest of those sizes is under $100 which is pretty amazing for an SSD. Now that these drives can use mSATA drives in them, they have taken a real fall in price in the last year. SSDs like …

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Thoughts on Canon’s New 70-200mm Lenses and Their Surprising Price

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Canon unveiled updated versions of their L-Series 70-200mm lenses this week and since these lenses have long been among the most popular in their lineup, I wanted to write some thoughts – good and bad – about this launch. First let’s take a look at what has been changed from the previous versions of these lenses: Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS III That’s it. The Mark II version of this lens was launched in 2009 and is extremely highly regarded, so Canon have definitely taken the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality with this lens update. The IS …

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Gear Check: Best PFD for Photographing from a Kayak

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Long term blog or social media followers of mine will know that I love to photograph wildlife from a kayak because it gives you such a wonderful low perspective. One of the challenges with photography from a kayak, or any small boat for that matter, is keeping gear safe, but also readily available. All of my larger photographic gear goes into a set of SealLine Bulkhead View dry bags, but there’s a few smaller items that are just nice to have on you at all times. Until very recently I wasn’t that sure how to accomplish this, but then I …

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Battery Grips: Canon Has Been Getting This Wrong for Years!

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A battery grip serves a few purposes: Firstly it allows you to more comfortably and solidly hold a camera in portrait orientation. Secondly it replicates the main camera control when held in this position. Finally, it also allows you to go longer without having to swap batteries, because it allows you to have two in the camera simultaneously. That third function, the battery one, isn’t exactly life changing. I’ve often seen it written that battery grips are great “because they allow you to shoot for longer” but really, how long does it take you to swap a battery? I can …

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Gear Check: Canon Drop-In Polarizer

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Circular polarizing filters are used for cutting down reflected light from water, wet surfaces, foliage and the sky. Most avid photographers are at least aware of their regular usage in landscape photography, and smart ones have one in their bag because it can totally transform an image when used correctly. Polarizer usage doesn’t have to stop at landscape images though! On a recent wildlife photography trip I was reminded just how useful they can be in wet environments when the light is harsh and high in the sky. If your long lens has a regular filter thread on the front …

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