5 Essential Tips for the Budding Travel Photographer

Photo by photog-raph

Unless you’re a professional travel photographer on an expedition-style assignment, chances are you’re not dragging boxes of equipment around on your travels. Throwing filters, tripods, remote flash, and other equipment into the mix can be quite daunting for the novice photographer traveling with limited space.

But for those interested in doing more with their travel photographs besides sharing great memories with family, here are a few essential tips to get you started on that road.

Go digital

I remember glaring at the Aurora Borealis on a frigid winter night in Iceland and marveling at the continental divide the next day, knowing I’d captured it all on film. I also remember my look of bewilderment and helplessness when the clerk handed seven blank rolls of film back to me – which most likely had been damaged by the airport’s x-ray machine. I’ve been a digital photography convert ever since.

Besides fast shutter technology, instant gratification, and enough space limited only by memory card size, the advantages of Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) photography are numerous.

With a flick of a dial or press of a button to change settings, you can shoot rapid action shots or serene landscapes within seconds. In the past, this involved switching out film with the right type of speed to get the best shots or using multiple purpose film which rarely produced the desired effects.

Photographer Ryan Libre explores why buying a DSLR may be worth it for your travel photography.

Once you’ve decided to switch technologies and purchase a digital SLR, be sure to invest equal time in learning the controls and settings of your camera.

Photo by law_keven

Pick your lens wisely

Lenses are the single most expensive and important gear you should invest in outside the body of your camera.

Memorizing and fully understand technical terminology such as focal length, aberration, barrel distortion, angle of view, and rectilinear are enough to deter novices from moving to the next level of photography.

However, understanding lenses need not be complicated. There are a myriad of lenses out there but the three common ones are: Wide-Angle (great for landscapes), Telephoto (great for portraits), and Zoom (great for snapping lions from a safe distance).

While most digital SLR cameras come with classic telephoto lenses which are great for depth of field photographs and portraits, most professional photographers use wide-angle lenses. These types of lens pull you right into the middle of the action, and cover a lot more field of view.

Macro lenses get you right up close to that caterpillar chewing a leaf, while Fisheye lenses give you the illusion of staring through the peephole of a door.

According to All Things Photography which provides a solid introduction to camera lenses, “…a quality lens will last….cameras come and go!”

Photo by ^riza^

Stock up on memory

Fast shutter speeds mean you can easily amass hundreds of photographs in a single day. Having extra memory cards provide you with more flexibility without having to delete older pictures to make room for newer ones in the field.

The most popular cards are SanDisk 2GB SD memory cards which can be bought for as low as $6.81, a 92% drop from its original price of $89.99.

If you envision snapping a couple thousand photographs during your travels, I would suggest buying 1G to 2G cards so you can space out your photographs in the event that you lose your camera or a card. This allows you to accrue the least amount of image loss.

Make sure you store your photography safely once your travels are over.

Read full article on MatadorU →

Check out more Cool, Funky & Unique Camera Bags.

For more on getting started, Google provides a great list of Digital Photography 101 resources.