When you’re just starting out in the world of photography, the camera can be a little scary to try and figure out. Most people put their cameras on Auto and never learn how shutter speeds, apertures, ISO, and light sources affect their pictures. Without getting too far into the more complex aspects of your camera, here are some tips to produce better nature photos, really any type of photography for that matter, while still using the automatic mode. These photo tips will work for any type of camera including SLRs and Point and Shoot cameras.

Using light for dramatic photographs:

The most important tip I can give you for any type of photography, especially outdoor and nature photography, is to pay attention to light. The light around dawn and dusk is generally the best light of the day for nature photos. At this time of day, the light from the sun passes through the atmosphere at an angle which creates dramatic shadows, makes rolling hills and mountains stand out, and the shadows and highlights are within a range of light that your camera can cope with. During the middle of the day, the contrast between shadows and highlights is too great, and your camera will either leave the shadows without detail or overexpose the bright points in your image. Shadows are also generally too harsh on living objects such as people and animals. Clouds soften and diffuse the light from the sun, which can leave landscapes looking flatter than normal, but can work well for portraits, wildlife images, and where contrast becomes an issue such as in a forest. Experimenting with different lighting conditions to find the right time of day for your specific image is the key. Sometimes a cloudy day, dawn or dusk, night, or during a storm is the perfect lighting condition to get the mood you want.

Foregrounds add interest to a sunrise or sunset photo:

Sunrises and Sunset photos have been popular since the advent of cameras, and will be popular forever. Because they are so popular, they can be over-photographed and cause a ho-hum reaction to your viewers. The best tip I can provide for exciting sunset images is to look for an interesting foreground such as a tree, fence, barn, animal, or a person in an interesting pose. Typically, the foreground object will become a silhouette, which is great because it won’t distract the viewer from the main subject of the picture - the beautiful colors of the sky.

Using the surroundings for better landscapes:

Landscapes are often better at the widest angle your camera will allow, assuming there aren’t any major distractions that could be avoided by zooming in or moving around. This is not always the case, so try a variety of shots from different positions and, if possible, different times of the day. Consider getting lower to the ground to capture more of the immediate foreground. Don’t place the main subject of your photo in the center of the picture. People automatically look at the center of a photograph. If the main subject is there, there’s no reason for them to look anywhere else, which makes the picture boring. If one object is dominating the picture, consider moving farther away from it or zoom out further on your camera.

Another tip for improving your landscape photos is to use the surroundings to draw the viewer’s eye towards the subject of the picture. By including a river, road, fence, or even a row of power poles, the photo has a natural line that the viewer’s eye will follow and make the picture more interesting to look at.

Reducing or removing distractions for better wildlife photos:

There’s a concept called depth of field, which basically refers to how much of the picture is in focus. For wildlife portraits, it’s often desirable to keep the animal in focus, while everything else is out of focus, which is referred to as a narrow depth of field. There are a few ways to do this. While still in auto mode on your camera, the best way to narrow the depth of field is to step back from your subject and zoom in on your subject as far as your camera will allow. Zooming in on your subject, also referred to as telephoto, compresses space which means that things seem closer to each other than they really are. It also narrows the depth of field.

The other way to narrow your depth of field is to change modes on your camera to aperture priority or use manual settings. It’s easiest to use aperture priority, which is usually denoted by a symbol of the letter “A” on your camera. When using this mode, you choose which aperture you want and your camera will figure out the rest. Aperture is another word for hole, and is referred to by its size. The funny f numbers on your camera refers to the size of the aperture; for example, f/4, f/8, etc. Without getting too technical, the smaller the number, the bigger the hole that light can go through to expose your image, and the narrower the depth of field. So f/4 will be narrower than f/8, but will have more of the picture in focus than f/1.8.

For portraits, wildlife photos, flowers, and macros, it’s usually desirable to start with the largest aperture (smallest f number) and longest focal length (zoomed in all the way) to produce the narrowest depth of field. In other words, the subject will be in focus, but nothing else. The next time you’re out, try experimenting with different apertures and focal lengths to get exactly the shot you’re looking for.

Look at your subject from different vantage points:

The last nature photography tip for this article is to simply walk around and look at your subject from different angles. Try to avoid problems like a branch or tree directly behind your subject because it’ll look like it’s growing out of their head. Circle your subject, move to the right, left, crouch down, or get higher up to see things from different vantage points. Some angles will have distracting glares or stark shadows, while another angle may be perfect. Remove distractions like garbage and wait for cars or planes to pass out of your frame if you can (unless the car or plane is your subject). If you’re shooting a close up of flowers, you’ll need to either shoot at a fast shutter speed by putting your camera on shutter priority or wait for the wind to stop blowing the flower. Don’t be afraid to shoot lots of pictures in hopes of getting just a few that are good.

Hopefully, this article has provided some useful tips to help you create better photographs of nature or whatever else you’re shooting without bogging you down by too many technical details. Don’t be afraid to experiment, but try and keep track of what you did to produce a specific picture so that you can do it again another day. Once you get that fantastic photo, be sure to upload it to your gallery on The Lens Flare, a community image gallery. We can’t wait to see it.

Related Articles:
Nature Photography Equipment
Nature Photography Equipment Follow Up
What to take hiking on a Nature Photography Excursion
Outdoor Photography Lighting Tips
All Nature Photography Blog Articles on The Lens Flare

Tags: camera, composition, landscape, Nature Photography, nature photography tips, Photography, photography tips

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 2:49 pm and is filed under Cameras & Lenses, Flower Photography, Landscape Photography, Nature Photography, Outdoor Photography, Photography, Wildlife Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.