Outdoor photography: tips for beginners
Outdoors in nature there are countless motifs that take your breath away. To be able to remember experiences even after years, the moment wants to be captured photographically. You don't necessarily need expensive equipment to take a beautiful photo for the wall in your living room or for your photo album. The most important tips for ensuring that the photos also convey the perceived mood are summarized in the free e-book on outdoor photography from Ifolor.
The right equipment for beginners
For a beginner's camera, a model with manually adjustable exposure time, aperture and ISO, and interchangeable lenses is a good choice. Here, SLR cameras or system cameras, which are popular because of their light weight and compactness, come into question. For the beginning one lens is enough, later it is always possible to upgrade. Further selection criteria are internal focusing and internal mechanics (zoom lenses). For landscape photography, a wide-angle lens with high light intensity and a tripod are useful. To protect the equipment from inconsistent weather, a rain cover is practical.
The most important camera settings: ISO, exposure time and aperture
The exposure time indicates how long light falls on the sensor. For handheld photos, keep the exposure time short because of the risk of camera shake. If a tripod is used, a longer exposure time is also conceivable, which is particularly useful for shots with poor lighting. The ISO value indicates the light sensitivity of the sensor and should be kept as low as possible, since higher ISO values result in grainy images due to artificial amplification of the incident light. For outdoor shots, a large aperture number is suitable, which defines the incidence of light, as both foreground and background should be sharp.
However, not all values have to be set independently right away. Depending on the manufacturer, there are different camera programs that select individual settings automatically. To get a feel for the effects of the settings, you can shoot the same scene with different settings and compare the results at home on the computer. The settings matching the images are stored in the metadata of the photo, so that the shooting conditions can be reconstructed.
Composition of the image
In outdoor photography, the three-dimensional effect is the most important aspect of the composition. This will z.B. achieved by an unusual perspective or an object in the foreground of the picture. Size comparisons by people or animals make a scene look more vivid and spectacular. But when it comes to photography, the well-known saying applies: practice makes perfect! Photography should be fun and with time you get a good feeling for the right impressions to shoot the perfect photo.