7 Tips for Adventure Photography

1. 7 Tips for Adventure Photography: Hi guys, welcome back. In this class, I'm gonna give you seven tips to level up your photography game will cover when you should be shooting, how you can compose your shots for a better result, what you need for shooting and more. So by the end of this class, you'll be shooting better photos on your next adventure. If you're looking to master your camera settings and functions, be sure to check out my other classes here on Skillshare to take better photos and video. For this class, you may want to grab a pen and paper or a Notepad to write these down as we go through them. So grab your camera and let's get started. 2. Gear: Let's go over some camera gear here before we jump into the class. First, obviously you're going to want bring your camera and lens. I like to use a wide-angle lenses. It straightforward landscape and nature shots. And this is probably the primary lens I would take when shooting in nature. Another option is to bring a zoom lens. This can be used creatively, getting close-up shots or features in the landscape. And you can zoom in or you can take more compressed photos, but they zoom lens over a wide angle lens. You'll also want to bring extra batteries when you've hiked halfway up the mountain. To last thing you want to find out is that your camera is out of battery. So be sure to get some extras before we head out on your next trip. That's the a camera bag and a camera strap. Our handy ways to carry your gear. 3. Lighting: This section we're going to cover lighting. Probably the best time to shoot is when the skies overcast or cloudy. So you don't have the sun washing out the highlights in your photos or making the shadows to contrast. We're going to look at some other times of day that will give you some good results as well. Mornings and evenings. Use natural light to your advantage. It's called golden hour or magic hour for a reason. And it's because it's one of the best times of light in the day. The sun is getting low on the horizon and you can get great backlit. Silhouette shots are portraits because of the quality of light. There's also this time called Blue, our bliss. The time between sunset, night, just when the sun has disappeared from view, but the light hasn't fallen to darkness quite yet. This makes for great landscape or nature shots. Just remember when shooting at these times you'll have a short period to shoot in as the lightest fading away tonight time. So be sure to have a plan for your shots before you run out of time. Also take a few days during this time of the day to practice before your next adventure. Get out there and practice your settings. Figuring out what settings you want to use before you head off on your next adventure trip. 4. Tripods: Next you'll probably want to bring a tripod on your trip. It's great for time-lapse is waiting for the sunrise or sunset, and it helps you get a solid shot without any camera jitter or shape that you might have just offhand shooting your photos. When you're on an adventure, you don't want extra things weighing you down. So plan on whether you want to bring a tripod or not. When you're using a longer shutter, it will reduce the camera shake, having it on a sturdy map. If you want a time-lapse, you can leave the cameras getting the sunrise or sunset on a tripod while you're off shooting something else or doing whatever you want to. There are a lot of different options when it comes to tripods, but you want something light and compact if you're gonna be out there carrying it around, hiking around with your camera, and all that gear is going to add up. Even if it's a smaller tripod, you just need something that will allow you to be hands-free. Keep your hands off the cameras so your cameras steady. Taking those shots. 5. Shooting in Weather: Next up is the weather. Whether it's going to be weathering, whether or not So whether you're shooting in different types of weather makes for the most dramatic photos. Getting out there and capturing shots and the elements when other people would be like thunder, snowstorm, rain? Nope, Not today. And they stay inside. You can be out there getting some great photos. Shoot in the mist, fog or rain or snow to give a dramatic effects your photos or getting the sun peeking through some storm clouds. When most other people would be hiding indoors when the weather's bad outside, you'll be out there getting some great shots. Shooting in the weather adds drama and action to your photos. One of the best times to shoot photography, like we mentioned before with lighting, is on a cloudy day when the light or the sun, in this case, is diffused behind those clouds, that will give you the most natural and even lighting in your photo. As an example of that, here's a light with a diffuser imagined. This is the sun behind the clouds. It's a nice soft light here. Now if we take off the diffuser, you can see this is very bright and harsh light. I just have the light here without a diffuser. And that's going to represent our site. That is a pretty harsh light to look directly at. So if we add a diffuser, like say this is sun, and now we have the clouds coming over the sun. You can see how this changes the lighting. See it is not so harsh and it diffuses that light. That's essentially what it's like when you're out there shooting in the clouds. 6. Bring a Subject: Another fun thing with Adventure Photography is taking pictures of subjects so you could bring along someone, maybe your friend or a family friend, or find an object on the trail to make into a subject. You could get that wide landscape shot with a person on an adventure, on a mountain ridge or trail, or bring a dog for some animal adventure photos. Also, you could bring a bright colored coat or jacket. So they would stand out from the landscape and give that image, that little bit of pop, that little sprinkle of color there will stand out from the picture and really add some emphasis to it. 7. Leading Lines: Another fun thing with Adventure Photography is using leading lines. Those lines will draw your attention to a certain area in the photo. It creates a visual journey that draws your attention from one part of the photo to another part. Or maybe to the center. This leads your eye to a point of interests in the picture. It will use this a lot with nature photos, with horizon lines, roads, power lines, mountains, or fences. 8. Turn on the Grid Feature!: Help with framing and lining up your third and your photos. You can go into your settings and turn on the grid feature on our Canon camera here we're gonna go into the wrench icon and down here under shooting info. And then down here we can get to the grid display options. And this is normally off on your camera. You can turn it on to three-by-three, six by 43 by three plus the diagonal. And with the diagonal, that will help you line up in the center of the photo. I like to keep mine on just the three-by-three for most of my shooting. And that just has the thirds in your display. So that'll help you out next time in composing your shots, in helping line-up those thirds. 9. Creative Perspectives: Another fun thing you may want to try and adventure photography is just using a rule of thirds. It's a very basic photography skill. This creates a photo that is eye-catching, creates a more pleasing photo using features that are there in the landscape and lining them up there in your camera. And it may just be lining up the horizon and a third, or treeline or your subject, photography is an art and you are the artist. But in this creative field, your brushes the camera and capture the scenes. So you get to pick how your image will turn out, which brings us to finding a different perspective. So shoot from a different angle than other photographers. Most of the shoot Chrome or use the three points of view you can shoot from a bird's eye view. If you're shooting down at something, you can shoot at eye level or from below, like shooting up from the grass looking upwards. It could just be using water to reflect the scene. This is just using your creativity to find a different way to shoot something. 10. Framing Composition: I'm going to add one more bonus tip in here and that is to shoot through something. So you get that Focal Blur. And that will give the pictures so much more depth and story. So if you just add something up there in the foreground of the photo, the ads that bokeh blur. And if you can space the background off so you will have more depth to your photo. You'll have all these varying levels with your focus point there in the center, creating way more depth into that photo. And that's another creative way. You can level up your photos. And you look around and you can add some details in your photo like this. It can help make a little frame inside that picture. Really put some emphasis into it. 11. Class Project: Alright guys, that's about it for this class. I hope you found this helpful. Come up below what you like about Adventure Photography and be sure to share a picture if you'd like. Love to see what you guys go out there and create. If you haven't already, be sure to check out my other classes to master your camera settings for photo and video. And I'll see you in the next class.