13 Essential Outdoor Photography Tips for travelers

These outdoor photography tips help you capture stunning shots in any setting; master natural light, composition, and simple camera settings to level up your photos fast.

Outdoor photography tips can turn an average shot into a scroll-stopping image, whether you’re shooting mountains, beaches, forests, or city streets.

From working with natural light to choosing the right angles and timing, a few simple techniques make a huge difference. In this guide, you’ll find practical, easy-to-apply outdoor photography tips to help you capture sharper, more vibrant photos wherever your adventures take you.

Outdoor Photography Tips

1. Choose the best time of the day

Avoid taking photographs around midday, the position of the sun will cause harsh shadows and if your object is a person, they will struggle not to squint. Early morning and late afternoon are the ideal times to be taking photographs outside; aim for the hour before sunrise and hour after sunset.

2. Shoot in RAW

Shoot in RAW, making it easier to edit your photos afterwards. Lighting outdoors is uncontrollable, if you shoot in RAW and then place these images into a program such as Lightroom and Photoshop (and use a raw image converter), you can adjust the white balance to perfect your image.

3. Try a slow shutter speed

When there is some movement in your image, such as waterfalls (like Niagara Falls), moving clouds or windy fields, slow down your shutter speed to make the most of the shot.

4. Include a focal point

When composing your shot, choose a focal point and line it up with the thirds in your image. This will add depth of field to your image and keep it interesting.

5. Be aware of the sun

It may sound obvious, but always be aware of the sun when you are shooting outdoors. Avoid shooting towards the sun otherwise, you will get a washed out image. Try to shoot with the sun behind you so you get a well-illuminated object and/or landscape.

6. Bring the essentials

Check the weather forecast, pack layers and make sure you are ready for long periods of time outdoors. Bring snacks and water to keep yourself hydrated and if you intend on hiking, make sure you only bring the lenses that you need. We like to use a lightweight, foldable tripod to keep the backpack light.

7. Use a wide-angle lens

These are popular lenses for landscape photography; used to emphasise the space and distance within a shot. If you want to include a lot of foreground, use a wide-angle lens.

8. Choose the right aperture

If your landscape has a lot of depth of field, your lens will need to be at a small f-stop; such as f/16. If this is too slow, try changing your ISO.

9. Find the horizon

Keep an eye on the horizon in your image and make sure it is straight and level in your image. You can have it in the lower third of your image if the sky is interesting but more often than not, the horizon line works better higher in the image.

10. Take advantage of the continuous feature

You may find yourself in challenging situations; for example, when you are photographing movement or need to shoot with a slow shutter speed but don’t have a tripod. For these situations, use the continuous shooting feature on your DSLR. You may find many of your pictures out of focus, but there will be some that our subject will be in focus.

11. Polarizing filter

These filters are must-haves for outdoor photography because they work by only letting in light from certain angles. This can improve colour saturation and remove glare.

12. Use nature

Look around and find the leading lines in the area, look for wildlife, flowers, reflections and water. These can all add interest to your shot. Practise your Wildlife Photography to get the perfect shot.

13. Research your location

This may be easier for some locations than others but when you plan on photographing outdoors, research the location as much as you can.

We struggle to do this in China because there is very little information online and google maps aren’t available.

But for most locations, we do our research thoroughly. Use TripAdvisor, google maps and blogs to find out as much as you can about the location. Use Instagram to give you inspiration but also to gain more understanding of the type of lighting you may get, what challenges you may face and so on.

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