Category: Travel Gear

Updated: 12/09/2018 | December 9th, 2018

Today, professional photographer Laurence Norah of Finding the Universe, finishes his five-part series on taking better travel photos. In part five, Laurence is giving some simple post-processing techniques that you can use to make your travel photos wow your friends and family! Editing your photos is just as important as how you compose them, so I hope you’re ready to take some notes!

One of the most misunderstood parts of digital photography is what happens after you take the shot: editing your photos, aka post-processing. This is where you edit the images you have taken, to create the final product.

Post-processing is the equivalent of the darkroom from the days we shot in film.

In today’s post, we’re going to be covering some ideas for editing your photos, from the basics (cropping and leveling), through to more complicated actions like recovering shadow and highlight information.

Editing Photos: 7 Editing Tips for Your Travel Photos

1. How to Crop Your photos
The crop tool allows you to change the size of your image, and also to change the aspect ratio. For example, you can crop an image from a rectangular shape to a square shape. There are many reasons you would want to crop, including for publishing in different formats and aspect ratios.

Let’s take a look at the first photo from this post, a lightning shot I took on a recent trip to the Florida Keys. Here’s the original version without cropping:

And the edited version, post-crop:

Compared to the original, I have cropped the image to remove the dark part of the pier on the right-hand side of the image and recomposed using the rule of thirds, so I have one-third land and two-thirds sky. This makes the lightning bolt more the focus of the shot.

You might wonder why I didn’t just compose properly when taking the shot. Well, in this case, I was doing a long-exposure shot without a tripod, so had the camera balanced on the edge of the pier for stability. That very much limited my ability to perfectly frame the moment, so I just shot wider, knowing I’d be able to crop the shot appropriately after the fact.

Let’s look at what cropping looks inside a couple of the tools available.

Here’s an example of cropping in Snapseed:

And the same thing in Lightroom:

In both cases, cropping is very simple: it just involves you selecting the crop tool and then selecting the area you want to keep with your mouse or finger. Then you apply the changes, and voilà, your new cropped image is ready to go.

As you see from this and later examples, the tools look similar across different platforms, so it’s easy to apply the learning you have from one tool to another.

2. How to Level Your Travel Photos
One of my personal petty annoyances in photography is when the horizon line in a photo isn’t level. Sometimes when we’re caught up in the moment, this basic compositional rule is forgotten — but the good news is that editing your photos to make them level is also very easy.

I’ll use the lightning shot as my example again. Balancing the camera on the edge of the pier meant that the shot wasn’t level — this is particularly noticeable to the eye when the image has a clearly defined horizon line, such as the sea.

If we look at a zoomed in version of the image in its original form, with a line overlaid near the horizon, we can see that it’s not level — the line is closer to the horizon on the right-hand side than the left.

In Lightroom, the level tool is part of the crop tool, and you can just rotate the image to suit. When you use the level tool, a grid will appear to help you get the alignment correct. Here’s a screenshot of that in action in Lightroom.

And here’s the same procedure in Snapseed, where the level tool is called “Rotate”:

Leveling an image is a really simple task that will take just a few seconds of your time, resulting in a much more visually pleasing image.

3. Vignetting Your Photos
Vignetting is about making parts of the image darker or lighter than other parts, in order to make it clearer what the subject of the shot is.

Some tools restrict your vignette to the corners, but in applications like Snapseed and Lightroom you can selectively darken and lighten areas of the image — you don’t need to restrict yourself to the corners.

Taking the lightning shot above, let’s load up the vignette tool in Snapseed.

Here we have options for how big to make the “center size,” i.e., the area to be edited. Inside this area, everything can be made brighter (inner brightness) and everything outside the area can be made darker (outer brightness). We can also do it in reverse, making the inner darker and the outer brighter.

Let’s apply the vignette tool to the lightning bolt, to give you an idea of the effect:

Above are the settings I chose for outer brightness and inner brightness, while below is the size of the vignette itself, which is based on the center size setting.

Vignetting is particularly good for portraits, and anywhere where you really want to make the subject of the image more clearly obvious to the viewer.

4. How Change Shadows and Highlights in Your Photos
Sometimes when we take a photograph, parts of the shot might end up being darker or brighter than we want. We refer to the dark areas of the shot as shadows, and the bright areas of the shot as highlights.

We can fix this by changing the brightness of the shadow and highlight areas specifically, using either the “Shadow” or “Highlight” tool. This is a tool that works particularly well on RAW files as they retain more information on the shadow and highlight areas of an image compared to a compressed JPG, which discards most of this information in order to save file size.

Let’s take a quick look at adjusting shadows and highlights using Lightroom. In Snapseed, shadow and highlight adjustment can be found under the “Tune Image” setting.

Here’s a shot of a couple enjoying a bonfire and fireworks display in Edinburgh during Hogmanay:

As you can see, the fireworks and bonfire are clearly visible, as are the torches the couple is holding, but the rest of the shot is dark. Let’s adjust the settings and see what we can get.

In this version of the image, the couple is much more visible, as is the hill the fireworks are on and the surrounding crowd.

To achieve this I increased the overall exposure of the image, making the whole image brighter, including the shadows and the highlights.

Then, as the shadow areas were still a little dark, I increased those a little more.

Finally, as the global exposure adjustment made the fireworks and bonfire too bright, I reduced the highlights a little bit to give the final result.

Shadow and highlight adjustment is useful in a wide range of scenarios to help balance the image out — bringing overexposed areas down in brightness, and helping to boost the shadows. Just be aware that a light touch is recommended — increasing the brightness of the shadows too much can result in a lot of noise being revealed, which might look unnaturally green or purple.

5. How to Adjust the Contrast
Contrast is about accentuating the difference between the light and dark parts of the image. Increasing the contrast of an image can dramatically improve the visual impact that has, by making the boundaries between those light and dark parts clearer.

Let’s take a look at a shot of people jumping against the sunset in the Sahara, for example, which I’ll be editing in Snapseed.

There is nothing too wrong with this shot, but it lacks the visual impact that I wanted. Ideally, I would want the shapes of the people to be in full silhouette against the sun, but as it was shot the camera picked up some skin tones and clothing color.

Using the contrast tool, we can make the dark areas stand out against the bright areas.

And here’s the result:

As you can see, this made the jumping figures and the dune more silhouetted against the sky. In most shots, you only want to tweak the contrast a little bit to get the desired effect, normally no more than +20 or so, but in this case, the higher number gave the best result.

6. How to Adjust Colors
Color adjustment is another important piece of the editing toolkit. We can adjust image color in all sorts of ways, from changing the overall “warmth” of the image (how blue or yellow it appears), to individually changing the hue and saturation of specific colors inside an image.

For this post, though, I just want to cover some very simple color changes you can use to make your images just a little more visually impactful.

The fastest way to adjust an image’s color is with the “Saturation” tool. This changes the appearance of every color in an image to make it more or less saturated. We can use the saturation tool to desaturate an image, eventually resulting in a black-and-white image with no color:

Or we can go all the way to the other end of the spectrum, and make the color incredibly saturated:

As with many edits, the key is to find a good balance — oversaturated images tend to look rather unnatural. Desaturated images can be very effective, and of course black-and-white is an excellent choice for all sorts of situations, in particular, portraits, architecture, and certain landscape scenes. But generally you would want to find a happy midpoint: not too oversaturated and not too undersaturated.

Saturation is adjusted on a sliding scale and is on the basic adjustments panel in Lightroom or the “Tune Image” option in Snapseed.

7. Blemish correction
The last area I’m going to touch on today is blemish correction, or “image healing.” Sometimes there will be something in an image that you really don’t want to be there, like an inconvenient pimple on someone’s face. This is easy to remove in all the major editing tools.

You can, in theory, remove any object from a scene, but the healing tool works best on distinct, small objects that are surrounded by uniform colors. This is because the heal tool has to replace the area you wish to remove with something else, and this works best when it has an area nearby that looks similar. So for example, a pimple on a face is surrounded by a lot of similarly colored skin, so the heal tool can easily calculate what to replace the pimple with based on the surrounding area.

For this example, I’m going to show how Snapseed can be used to replace an object in a scene. Here’s a group of people sitting on a sand dune in the Sahara:

Let’s say for some reason I only wanted to have people sitting in my shot, and I need to remove the standing person. She is a good candidate for removal as she is separate from the rest, and the surrounding scenery is not too complicated.

In Snapseed, we load up the healing tool, then we zoom in on the object to be removed with the standard “pinch to zoom” gesture.

Next, we use our finger to draw the area to be removed. It’s important to be as precise as possible because the tool is most accurate with small objects.

Once we have drawn the area, Snapseed will edit it out, replacing it with the best guess of what is behind the object.

As you can see, the result is impressive, with no real evidence that there was anyone standing there at all.

The healing tool is perfect for all manner of fixes, from editing out unwanted background strangers in your shot, to removing skin blemishes in portraits or power lines in landscape shots.

Best Photography Editing Software

Here is a list of the best editing tools out there:

• Adobe Lightroom (PC or Mac) – Lightroom is the industry standard tool for photography professionals. But this post is not going to focus on Lightroom, nor cover everything you can do in Lightroom, as it’s a massively complex tool, covering both photo management and photo editing.
• iPhoto (Mac) – I list iPhoto here mainly because it’s a commonly used tool among Apple users. However, I personally never recommend using it. While it will let you do everything that I cover in this post and is better than nothing, the way it manages your photos makes it hard to migrate to a more sophisticated system further down the line if you choose to do so.
• Picasa (PC or Mac) – Picasa is a free desktop photo editing application from Google. It’s very simple, but it allows you to do everything I’m going to cover in today’s post. If Lightroom is a bit overwhelming, Picasa is a great, free place to start.
• Snapseed (iOS or Android) – Another free Google tool, Snapseed is the best mobile image-editing app for both iOS and Android. It’s an incredibly powerful tool that, while simple to start using, has a great many features that take time to fully master. I use it for 95% of my mobile editing needs.

Let’s take a look now at what you can and should be using these tools for with your images.

***

Editing your photos is a crucial step that far too many people skip. As you can see from this lesson, there is much more to editing your photos than just picking a filter and posting your picture on Instagram. By incorporating some of these tips and techniques into your post-processing routine you’ll be able to improve your travel photography in leaps and bounds.

So get out there and start taking pictures!

Laurence started his journey in June 2009 after quitting the corporate life and looking for a change of scenery. His blog, Finding the Universe, catalogs his experiences and is a wonderful resource for photography advice! You can also find him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Travel Photography: Learn More Tips

For more helpful travel photography tips, be sure to check out the rest of Laurence’s travel photography series:

• Part 1 – How to Take Professional Travel Photos
• Part 2 – How to Shoot the Perfect Travel Photograph
• Part 3 – The Best Cameras & Travel Photography Gear
• Part 4 – How to Take the Perfect Photo: Advanced Techniques
• Part 5 – 7 Editing Tips to Improve Your Travel Photographs

LEARN TO GET OUT OF AUTO!

If you are looking to really get into photography and want to master your camera and take amazing photos when you travel, Laurence and I have developed a comprehensive photography course that will get you out of auto and have your friends go “Wow! That’s really breathtaking!” in no time. Click here to learn more about the course and start today!

The post 7 Editing Tips to Improve Your Travel Photographs appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

Updated: 12/2/2018 | December 2nd, 2018

Today, professional photographer Laurence Norah of Finding the Universe, continues his five-part series on taking better travel photos. Many of you are looking to improve your travel photography so Laurence is here to help us do just that. In this post, Laurence goes in-depth on how to pick the perfect travel camera and gear for your trip.

There is a belief that better photography gear will equate to better photographs. While this is certainly the case in specific situations, the reality is that it is the skill of the photographer that makes all the difference. A pro-level camera in inexperienced hands will likely result in worse photographs than those taken by someone using an iPhone.

Knowing how to compose a great photo and how to use your camera properly are the two most important parts of taking a great photo, with the camera gear itself coming next in importance after these two.

Sometimes, gear does make a difference, particularly for situations such as fast-moving subjects or when there is less light available, in which case you might need a camera with a bigger sensor or a lens with a wider aperture. This is why you often see sports or wedding photographers carrying such expensive-looking equipment. But for your average travel photograph, the gear isn’t going to be the definitive factor. Rather, it’s important to get the right gear for you, your budget, and your skill level.

How much money do you want to spend?

There’s no point spending time looking at gear that isn’t in your budget. Set yourself a budget before you begin, and don’t forget to factor in lenses, memory cards, spare batteries, filters, and other accessories.

There is a law of diminishing returns, with a sweet spot currently of around $500–1,000 USD for a solid setup that will do everything you need.

Consider these price guidelines for all the equipment you’ll need:

• Budget: $150–300 USD
• Value: $300–500 USD
• Mid-range: $500–1,000 USD
• High-end: $1,000+ USD

How much gear are you willing to carry?

Weight is a serious consideration, and you have to be brutally honest with yourself about what you are willing to carry with you. I’ve often met people taking pictures with their smartphone who say they have a nice expensive DSLR sitting back in their hotel room that was “too heavy to bring out today.”

If you’re not the kind of person who wants to carry a heavy device, then don’t buy one in the first place. The best camera is always the one you have on you, so if you think you’re going to mostly just be keeping it light, then just invest in a decent smartphone or simple point-and-shoot.

For reference, your smartphone probably weighs around 6 oz., a point-and-shoot 8 oz., a mirrorless system with a lens around 16 oz., and a full DSLR system around 30 oz. or more.

The heavier the equipment, the higher the quality of construction, particularly of the optical elements, leading to higher-quality images. However, unless you are planning on selling your work for high-resolution printing, the difference probably won’t be noticeable.

This is another moment to be honest with yourself. Learning how to use a camera properly takes time, and if you don’t want to do that, then don’t invest in an overly expensive or complicated camera.

I’ve seen people with rigs costing in excess of $5,000 USD, shooting away in auto mode and wondering why the folks with the iPhones are getting better results. More expensive gear does not automatically equate to better photos!

There’s no exact science to figuring out how difficult a camera is to use, but difficulty indicators include costing more, having more buttons, and having a massive manual. The more complicated the camera, the more control that you have, but the harder it will be to achieve good results without investing time and effort into learning.

11 Best Cameras for Travel

The main difference between camera types is the size of the sensor inside the camera — the larger the sensor, the better the camera will perform in lower light, and the bulkier and more expensive it will be.

The following list is roughly ordered by sensor size, from small (smartphones) to larger (SLRs).

1. Google Pixel 2: I’ve used a lot of Android phones over the years, and Google’s Pixel 2 is a beast when it comes to mobile photography. It offers full manual control, a super f/1.8 aperture lens, the option to shoot in RAW file format, optical image stabilization, and even pretty good performance in low light.(Smartphone, $629
2. iPhone X: I’ve never personally used an iPhone, but they are often lauded by friends as being superb for photography, with each iteration improving on the last. If you’re an Apple fan, you’ve probably already got one though. (Smartphone, $1,050)
3. Sony RX 100 V: While this is by no means a cheap point-and-shoot, it is generally reviewed as the best in its class. This is due to having a much larger sensor than other models, meaning that the image quality is a lot better. If price is an issue, check out previous versions which come in a bit cheaper. (Point and shoot, $895)
4. Canon Powershot Elph 190 IS: At the other end of the scale is this $100 USD point-and-shoot from Panasonic. It’ll get the job done, offers a 12x optical zoom, and will slip nicely into your pocket. Don’t expect National Geographic–quality shots though. (Point and shoot, $150)
5. Canon Powershot G9X Mark II: Though it sits between the above two options in price, the G9 X Mark II comes a lot closer to the Sony in terms of image quality. Excellent battery life, rugged construction, and Wi-Fi round out the feature set. (Point and shoot, $430)
6. GoPro Hero 7 Black: Despite other manufacturers’ attempts, there is only one option when it comes to action cameras, and that’s the GoPro. If the Hero 6 is too pricey, check out the Hero 6 which is very similar. (Action cam, $399)
7. Nikon Coolpix B700: Nikon has an excellent reputation for superzooms, and this model has a crazy 60x optical zoom. It’s a good value option too, with solid reviews, so I have no hesitation suggesting this as an option if you want an all-in-one with scope for more control over your photography. (Superzoom, $450) (Here are some more options to consider at different price points.)
8. Lumix GX7 or GX8: With a 16MP four thirds sensor, 4K video, touch screen, and Wi-Fi, the GX7 has everything you need for successful shooting with a mirrorless camera. (Mirrorless, $500-$1,200)
9. Alpha 6300 or A7R III: If you’re on a budget but want to get your foot in the door, the a6300 is the camera for you. For someone with a higher skill level (and significantly higher budget), the A7R III is a top-notch choice, offering a full-frame sensor, super fast processing, a secondary SD slot, and improved battery life. (Mirrorless, $900-$3,200)
10. X-T2: With an electronic viewfinder, flip-out screen, a secondary SD slot, and improved autofocus, this is a great mirrorless choice for anyone wanting a smaller camera but who still wants full manual control. (Mirrorless, $1,600)
11. Canon EOS 6D Mark II: I shoot with two of these cameras and am always impressed by their performance, particularly in low light. They are the lightest SLRs with a full-frame sensor, and also have Wi-Fi and GPS, the latter being particularly handy for travel. (DSLR, $1,600)

Getting the Best Travel Lens

If you are buying a mirrorless or SLR system, then you’re going to have to buy a lens. Consider spending at least as much on the lens as the camera body, if not more.

I suggest buying the camera body by itself and then buying a lens to meet your needs rather than the “kit-lens” that might come with it.

A lens has two specifications: focal length and maximum aperture.

The smaller the number of the aperture, the more light the camera will let in, allowing you to achieve various effects (as I described in the second post in this series).

The focal length is the zoom factor of the lens — the bigger the number in mm, the more magnification the lens offers; the smaller the number, the less magnification.

What to look for in a lens

For travel purposes, I’d advise buying two lenses:

• A cheaper “prime” lens with a fixed focal length of around 50mm and an aperture of 1.8, perfect for portraits or food.
• A good-quality “walk-around” zoom lens with a wide focal range to let you get everything from wide landscapes to close-up shots of people. Something in the range of 24-105mm would likely do.

The Best Trevl Photography Accessories

You must factor in some money for purchasing accessories when buying a camera. I’d suggest the following:

• Spare battery: Most camera batteries last for 300-500 shots, so if you think you’ll be taking a lot of photos and might be away from power for a few days, a second battery could ensure that you don’t miss a moment. I’d advise buying the battery from your manufacturer to guarantee compatibility. Price: usually around $30 USD.
• External hard drive: Depending on the capacity of your laptop, you might find you need an external hard drive to store your photos. I travel with three Transcend ruggedized hard drives and store backups of my photos across two of them, as well as synchronize them to a cloud-based backup when I have fast enough Internet. Price: currently around $99 USD for a 2TB model.
• Filters: Lenses aren’t cheap. Pick up a relatively inexpensive UV filter for the front of your lens, and if you scratch it, you’ll just need to replace the filter rather than the whole lens. I would also suggest investing in a polarizing filter (as I mentioned in the second post in the series). Price: the larger the filter, the more expensive it is. $10–100 USD, with Hoya, B+W, and Tiffen being respectable brands.
• Memory cards: Memory cards are cheap, so pick up one or two Class 10 32Gb or 64Gb cards that’ll let you keep shooting for ages. I’ve not found much difference between brands, and have never had a card fail in all my years shooting. Price: $30 USD for 64Gb.
• Tripod: A tripod can really expand your creative possibilities, letting you take longer exposures and play with time. Even a small travel tripod can reap dividends for your travel photography. Again though, if you don’t think you’ll use it, don’t buy one. Price: $100 USD will get you a perfectly respectable model. I use the VEO range of Vanguard tripods, which fit nicely into a bag and weigh around 5 lbs, with prices ranging from $100 to $350 USD.

***

Never forget that the most powerful photography tool is you — not your camera! I traveled the world with an old 10-megapixel Canon Rebel SLR for years, producing both award-winning and income-generating photography from — by today’s standards — a very basic bit of kit.

It is far more important to invest time in learning how to take better photos than throwing money at gear. Do your research, figure out your personal travel style, and pick the gear that is right for you, based on weight, price, and your personal learning goals.

If that camera turns out to be a smartphone, awesome. The best camera for traveling is the one you are going to be taking with you whenever you walk out your door and head into the world and the one that fits your budget.

Laurence started his journey in June 2009 after quitting the corporate life and looking for a change of scenery. His blog, Finding the Universe, catalogs his experiences and is a wonderful resource for photography advice! You can also find him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

More Travel Photography Tips!

For more helpful travel photography tips, be sure to check out the rest of Laurence’s travel photography series:

• Part 1 – How to Take Professional Travel Photos
• Part 2 – How to Shoot the Perfect Travel Photograph
• Part 3 – Best Camera and Gear to Get
• Part 4 – How to Take the Perfect Photo: Advanced Techniques
• Part 5 – 7 Editing Tips to Improve Your Travel Photographs

LEARN TO GET OUT OF AUTO!

If you are looking to really get into photography and want to master your camera and take amazing photos when you travel, Laurence and I have developed a comprehensive photography course that will get you out of auto and have your friends go “Wow! That’s really breathtaking!” in no time. Click here to learn more about the course and start today!

The post Camera Gear: The Travel Cameras and Accessories to Buy appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

Updated: 12/2/2018 | December 2nd, 2018

­Today, professional photographer Laurence Norah of Finding the Universe, continues his five-part series on taking better travel photos. Photographs are important for the memories they represent so Laurence is here to help us take better pictures! Part two of the series is on how to get the perfect shot.

In my first post in this series, I talked about the key compositional rules that you can use to create better travel photos. If you’re new to this series, I recommend you start there.

Today I’ll be covering how to deal with challenging light and some introducing some advanced ideas for controlling your composition, including being selective with your focus and making objects seem closer together than they are.

Then I’m going to get into specific tips for common travel scenes to get you taking better photos faster.

I’ll begin, though, by talking about the most crucial element of photography — the light. The middle of a sunny day might seem perfect for photography. In truth, it’s the worst time to take pictures — the light is harsh, shadows are challenging, and your photos will not do your subjects justice.

The best times to shoot are closer to sunrise and sunset when the light is soft and warm. These times are known as “the golden hour.”

You can’t be everywhere at the right time for the perfect light, especially when traveling. Here’s how to get the best shot from a bad lighting situation.

12 Ways to Take Better Photos

1. Be Aware of the Sun

This is the most important tip of the lot. Ideally, you want the sun behind you so that your subject is fully lit. If the sun is behind your subject you’ll end up with a much darker, poorly lit image. While this can be done intentionally for effect, for most shots you’ll want the sun to properly light your subject. To do that, position yourself so you are between the sun and your subject, as I did in this shot from my journey around New Zealand:

2. Get Creative

Don’t just take the same shot every time. Mix it up and get creative. Instead of having the sun behind you, take advantage of the harsh light for a more interesting image. Try shooting into the sun to create silhouettes, or use a high aperture to create a starburst effect, like in this Napa Valley balloon photo:

3. Use the Weather

Think about how you can use the weather to your advantage. How can you embrace a grey sky or a rainy landscape to capture a unique photo? How can you snap a picture of a blue sky without it being boring? Be aware of the weather so you can adjust your style and subject accordingly. For example, when the sun is behind clouds, the light is diffused. Clouds also add interest and scale to otherwise plain, boring skies, as in this shot of the Painted Desert in Australia:

4. Seek Shade

If you’re taking pictures of people, find somewhere shady. Here the light will be more even, with fewer harsh shadows on faces. You’ll get a much smoother and more balanced photo. Just make sure you are mindful of where your light is and how dark your subject will be. Here’s an example from the middle of the day in Sri Lanka:

5. Master Depth of Field

Depth of field is all about controlling which parts of the shot are in focus. It’s one of the most important photography concepts you’ll need to know if you want to improve your travel photography and capture that perfect shot. Mastering depth of field will allow you to compose a variety of shots just by changing where your focus is. For example, check out this shot of a monkey:

As you can see, only the monkey is in focus. This is known as a “shallow” depth of field and is used to isolate subjects and make the shot about them.

A wide depth of field is for shooting landscapes and scenery. Here’s a shot from New Zealand where I used a wide depth of field to get much more of the scene in focus:

To manipulate depth of field on your camera you need to change the aperture — check your manual for how to do that. Typically it will be marked as “Av” or “A” on your mode dial.

Some smartphones allow you to manually set your aperture, either through the built-in camera app, or by downloading an advanced app from your device’s app store.

A wide-open aperture (f/4 and lower) produces a shallower depth of field (less of the shot will be in focus), and a smaller aperture (f/8 and higher) puts more of the scene in focus.

There are plenty of tutorials on the Internet about depth of field; take a look here for a more detailed explanation, and here for a depth of field simulator to get more of a handle on what it is.

6. Utilize Street Scenes

Street photography is about capturing moments — immersing yourself in environments and finding interesting stories.

Patience and politeness are key to successful street shots involving people — not everyone wants to have their photograph taken, and it may be illegal to do so without explicit permission. If no one wants their photo taken, try wider crowd shots, or focus in on market goods — colorful spice piles or unusual-looking goods are always interesting subjects. Alternatively, shoot the streets themselves. Doorways or intriguing architecture are a nice starting point — take this street in Bologna, Italy, for example:

As for the settings, use a wider depth of field (smaller aperture) for general street scenes.

7. Learn to Photograph People

If you’re looking for portraits, your best bet is to make friends with people. Learn about them and their stories, then ask for that permission.

I prefer taking pictures of people I know, as I generally don’t have to worry about permission problems.

My favorite style of people photos is “candid,” unposed shots. This is the best way, in my opinion, of capturing the personality of people.

The key to the art of unobtrusive photography is persistence, patience, and keeping your eyes open to the photographic possibilities around you. Anticipating the moments that might be about to happen is key.

I’d advise a shallow depth of field (wide aperture) and fast shutter speeds for portraits and action shots of people.

8. Use Beaches

Beaches are one of my favorite spots to shoot sunsets — nothing quite beats the sun setting over the sea! The water and the wet sand make for great reflection opportunities.

Think carefully about your composition, and in particular the foreground and mid-ground of your shot, as I talked about in the composition post. Try different angles, and maybe get above your subject to present the beach in the context of its environment, like this shot of Hellfire Beach in Western Australia:

Outside of sunset, beaches can be very bright environments, so you may need to adjust your exposure to compensate. Most cameras and phones let you shift exposure left or right manually with a button that looks like +/-, or from inside the app.

If you are shooting friends and can’t find shade, consider setting your camera’s flash to “fill” setting to compensate. This uses the flash to light up the shadows caused by the sun, and can make portraits shot into the sun look more pleasing.

Finally, take care of your gear. Fine sand and salt water don’t agree with most camera equipment! Here are some more beach photography tips to get you started.

9. Master Taking Pictures of Landscapes

There are two things that helped my landscape photography improve: a tripod and a polarizing filter (if you’re interested in my photography equipment, here’s a full list of my travel photography gear).

Controlling depth of field is a key part of landscape photography. Unfortunately, as you increase the aperture the shutter speed becomes slower — to the point where your hand movement can result in a blurry image. This is why you need a tripod.

Read more about how shutter speed, ISO (light sensitivity setting), and aperture are linked in this article on the exposure triangle.

A polarizing filter is fantastic for making blue skies and clouds pop, and for controlling reflections. It also reduces the amount of light entering the camera, so that tripod is even more helpful.

If the above two sound like too much effort, don’t worry. You can improve your landscape photography no end by thinking seriously about your composition. Leading lines, the rule of thirds, and finding a sense of scale by putting subjects in your foreground or mid-ground are key.

10. Learn How to Use Low light

So often we’re out with friends at night and want to capture those moments together, but we can’t seem to get anything other than a blurry mess.

This is because most cameras aren’t great when working with the amount of light that’s available at night —they use slow shutter speeds that turn movement into blurs.

More expensive equipment can make a real difference for low-light photography. All is not lost if your pockets aren’t deep enough, though. First, you can increase the ISO setting on your camera. While this will reduce the quality of your shots, they will look better than blurry photos.

Another idea is to find something to rest your camera on. If you don’t have a tripod, try and find an alternative — anything that is stationary and not prone to shake like your hand does. Then, use your camera’s timer function to take the shot. If you’re taking pictures of people, get them to stand as still as possible!

11. Get Action Shots

For better action photos, you have two options. One is to use a fast shutter speed to “freeze” the action — such as a shot of a hummingbird in flight, or a surfer on a wave.

The other option is to show the motion by using a longer shutter speed — the resulting blur will convey a sense of action to your viewer.

In this shot of a train, I manually set the shutter speed to 1/30th of a second, slow enough that the trees at the edge of the shot would seem to be rushing past as I leaned out of the window, yet fast enough that the train itself would remain sharp, even handheld. I think this worked pretty well!

12. Take Pictures of Waterfalls

Waterfalls are a fantastic photography subject. My favorite way to shoot them is with a slow shutter speed, creating a soft and fluffy effect. Shutter speeds of 1/15th of a second and slower give the best results — you’ll need to use a tripod or rest your camera on something to avoid blur from your hand movement.

Another good way to shoot waterfalls is from far away using a long lens, using compression to create a sense of drama around your subject. Or, go the other way, and shoot super-wide, taking in the full glory of the scene.

Finally, don’t forget to use the light. All that flowing water can cause beautiful rainbows, as seen in this shot of Vernal Falls in Yosemite:

***I believe that taking better photos is a combination of three factors — being in the right place at the right time, knowing how your gear works, and knowing how to compose a great shot. Shutter speed and aperture are two key settings in the photographer’s toolbox, and you need to learn how to access and control those modes on your camera.

When you do, you will have much greater creative control over your photography.

Laurence started his journey in June 2009 after quitting the corporate life and looking for a change of scenery. His blog, Finding the Universe, catalogs his experiences and is a wonderful resource for photography advice! You can also find him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Travel Photography: Learn More Tips

For more helpful travel photography tips, be sure to check out the rest of Laurence’s travel photography series:

• Part 1 – How to Take Professional Travel Photos
• Part 2 – How to Shoot the Perfect Travel Photograph
• Part 3 – How to Buy the Best Camera Gear
• Part 4 – How to Take the Perfect Photo: Advanced Techniques
• Part 5 – 7 Editing Tips to Improve Your Travel Photographs

LEARN TO GET OUT OF AUTO!

If you are looking to really get into photography and want to master your camera and take amazing photos when you travel, Laurence and I have developed a comprehensive photography course that will get you out of auto and have your friends go “Wow! That’s really breathtaking!” in no time. Click here to learn more about it!

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