These travel photography tips will be useful for those who want to take professional adventure photos while visiting various places of the globe. Being rather easy to follow, these recommendations will allow you to spice up your travel photos and up your shooting game.
1. Pick the Right Camera Gear
Travel photography covers a variety of scenarios. It involves portraiture, landscape, architectural photography and even photojournalism. Therefore, you should carefully choose the gear. Of course, you can take photographs on a compact camera, but to get spectacular pictures, it is better to pick a digital camera with interchangeable lenses.
2. Be Mindful about Right Lens
For taking travel photos, it is enough to have a wide-angle lens with a focal length of 17-50 mm and a telephoto lens with a focal length of 70-300 mm. The wide-angle lens will allow you to shoot without a flash in poor lighting conditions, for example, in palaces, cathedrals or museums. A telephoto lens is perfect for photographing distant objects as well as for doing photojournalism photography.
Instead of two lenses, you can take one universal 18-200 mm zoom lens. Anyway, a zoom lens is the best option for travel photography, because when using a lens with a fixed focal length, it may be difficult for you to compose the shot since you can’t change the focal range.
3. Invest in a Traveler’s Tripod
The best and most atmospheric landscape photos can be taken using a long exposure. Shooting during blue and golden hours as well as practicing nighttime and HDR photography requires camera stabilization. However, it is rather difficult to carry a regular tripod with you.
That is why consider investing in the travel tripod. There is a variety of tripods for travel photography on the market. Some travel tripods are lightweight and portable, while others are similar to full-size tripods that can be easily collapsed.
The choice depends on your budget, preferences and places you are going to travel to. Nevertheless, having a travel tripod in your arsenal will open new horizons.
4. Prepare Useful Little Things
One of the most useful travel photography tips is to take useful little things with you. Remember to pack lens hoods, filters, lens wipes, a cable release (if you use a tripod), a spare SD card and batteries.
You have definitely heard a lot about all these things, and you just need to remember to bring them along. To protect your camera gear from humidity, you can use Silica gel. It is also possible to use clean plastic bags to protect your photography equipment from rain or water splash, but remember to put only dry devices in them.
If water has got on the camera or other equipment, it is necessary to dry it first to avoid a greenhouse effect.
5. Use the Rule of Thirds
Learning the Rule of Thirds will allow you to improve the composition and balance your travel pictures. Try dividing the image into three equal horizontal and vertical sections as if you overlay a grid (3 by 3) on it.
It is necessary to place important elements of the composition in these sections and frame the overall shot so that it looks well-balanced and visually appealing. For example, you should place a subject along the left gridline rather than in the center of the frame.
Also, you can adjust the composition so that the horizon is on the bottom third, but don’t split the image in half. Don’t forget to keep your horizon line straight.
6. Shoot During the Golden and Blue Hours
Lighting is a vital element in any photography genre. If it comes to traveling photography and especially landscape photography, it is better to shoot during the golden and blue hours. The golden hour is the time just after sunrise or before sunset.
The light is soft and warm, and the shadows are pleasing to the eye. The blue hour comes after sunset or right before sunrise. The sky is deep blue but it is light enough to take spectacular pictures. This is also the best part of a day to take cityscape photos.
The sky is acquiring a dark blue shade and the lights in the city are still visible.
Both of these periods are perfect for stellar photography. The worst part of a day to take pictures outside is at noon (if it is not a cloudy day) since the light is harsh and the shadows look unflattering.
7. Always Edit Your Photos Before Posting
You can enhance any photo with the help of photo editing software. Only non-professionals say that their photos don’t require any further processing. You don’t always need to considerably change the image or create a photo collage.
However, you can fine-tune your shots by enhancing contrast, removing shadows or dark areas. Often, even simple cropping can turn an ordinary photo into a masterpiece.
Couple more hints. Write down where you are taking the photos or learn how to save GPS / Geotags to your photos. This is handy when time passes and you are trying to remember where you took the photo. Biggest tip is to have a powerful telescopic lens to get far away closeups. If you don’t have a tripod, brace yourself on a sturdy object for those big zoom shots, otherwise they maybe blurry.
These are great tips. i would add one more – make up business cards. They can say blogger or photographer, but they help when approaching people you want to photograph. It also gives you a way to offer to send a copy of your photo to your subject.