How to Take Awesome Hiking Pictures
Last Updated on September 2, 2020
To get the refresh from your body and soul, you may go for hiking. There are a lot of beautiful spots for hiking worldwide, which will amuse you. You may go there and gather adventurous experiences. And in return, you must want to come back along with some amazing memories.
Those memories will remain in your hiking pictures. Besides, it is also important that your photos will be awesome. Otherwise, usual and exhaustive images won’t make your memories awesome and to make you jolly inside.
Imagine, you are in hiking with your team, you have an expensive professional camera, and you want to capture all those sceneries of the spot, which attract you. You took some photographs as well, but you found that your pictures are not being good enough as you desired. It makes you disappointed inside.
Now the food for thought is, “How to take awesome hiking pictures?”.
There is a misconception among people that they think, for taking a good picture a professional camera is mandatory, but it’s wrong. All you need first is a proper guideline and tips to follow. Even you can take good pictures with your smart phone’s camera, which may not have a high regulation.
Moreover, if you want to take photos of the pro level, then you need a professional camera with various types of lens. But you also need to notice on your backpack’s weight. You can’t take all your camera accessories.
Here we are providing you some essential learning tips to take awesome hiking pictures.
Know about the spot: You need to study about the spot in detail. You may go to check out the previous photographs of that spot so that you can find out proper location to capture photos. Again, you have to choose your camera, lens, and other accessories according to the place. Besides, when you are going to capture with your phone, you may need a change in your camera app settings. So, know about the place first.
Positioning: You have to know about the positioning of how to hold the phone and in which angle. For landscape photos, you need to hold your phone in a horizontal position. If you haven’t enough idea of positioning, then you can study it. Besides, you should try different angles of photography.
- Bird’s eye angle: In this angle, you hold your camera above the view and capture straight down. The distance between the scene and the camera depends on your camera’s regulation. In recent days, professional photographers use a drone for taking such photos. You may take a mini-drone for your device. When you are in wild areas from this angle’s photographs are highly appreciated.
- High angle: High angle photography means to take photos from a top angle of the view and not straight down but curved down. From the top of the hill or mountain, one may take such a photograph from this angle.
- Low angle: You have to hold your camera at the bottom and take the view of the little bit of upside in a curved position. When you start your hiking on the hill or mountain, then you may take such photos of the upper side of the hill or mountain from bottom.
- Bug’s eye angle: Hold the camera as low as possible and take the view of the top side. Hiking into the jungle or tunnel, you may click from this angle.
Take pictures in the gridline: If you want to capture a perfectly balanced image, then enable gridline in your camera. In gridline photography, you can see there are two vertical lines and two horizontal lines on your camera display.
Try to keep the lighting area (sky, sun, any lighting area) near to the 1st horizontal space line, keep the subject matter in the 2nd horizontal spaceline, and keep the basement of the view in the 3rd horizontal spaceline.
Keep the subject matter of the view at the intersection of gridlines where horizontal lines and vertical lines meet each other. In each horizontal spaceline, there are 3 parts, and a total of 9 parts.
There are 4 centralized points, where have intersections of vertical and horizontal lines, try to keep the subject matter on those points. You may study “The Rule of Thirds in Photography” to a better understanding of positioning and gridlines.
Sense of light: Sense of light means that you have to understand the way of light. In jungle hiking, if you need a shadow in your photos then try to capture on the way of sunlight.
Avoid poor flashlight: Try to avoid poor flashlight, which may reduce your photo quality. Because, when you try to focus a single subject then flashlight make you unable to focus correctly.
Capture Panorama: You may take some panorama for a long wide view of the spot. Photographers take such captures in the panorama when they want to include different types of beautiful views in one capture. Take your panorama slowly to make it clear. Otherwise, it may reduce the quality of your capture.
Don’t make noise and keep patience: In wildlife photography, try to keep calm and patience to get a perfect shot. Don’t talk to your teammates. Otherwise, the animals will run away.
Capture candid and action: You may take some candid photos of yours and your teammates. But for making something awesome, take photos when your mates are busy at work (like- Walking, Setting up the tent, Preparing the food). Such, an action based photography is highly appreciated in hiking.
Capture in a campfire: When you and your team set up the tents on the hill or jungle for passing the night, you must arrange some wood and other fuel to fire up. In such a campfire you can capture some remarkable pictures without a flashlight.
Never miss the golden hours: Golden hours are the time of sunset and sunrise. Both times are the best moments for awesome clicks. Generally, most of the hikers go for hiking on the mountain only to enjoy the beauty of sunset and sunrise. Try to get up early for the beautiful moments of sunrise.
Keep your camera ready before the golden hours. Focus is not mandatory in such a capture. You will get the best landscape photographs in both times. So don’t miss the times and capture as many you can from different angles.
Try to make a frame in your photos: When you are capturing something, you can make a frame in your capture with natural elements. Such a frame improves your photography sense and makes you creative. In the mountain, you are taking a photograph of some hills which are standing side by side.
For such a picture, you can choose a better foreground that you can keep something (like- branch of trees, rocks, flowers) in the front to make a better frame and to give your photo depth. In such a landscape, keep your camera in a low side angle or straight angle with framing that will make your capture more unique.
Focus on the subject matter: In your capture, there must be a subject matter. Focus on it. Mainly in wildlife photography or jungle hiking, you need to focus on the subject matter to make it clear. Imagine, you are going to taking a photo of a bird, which is sitting on the lowest branch of the tree.
And you are taking your capture in a very short distance of the bird, in such a photo you just need to focus on the bird. That will make the bird more clear, and the background will be blurred.
Courses: Before your hiking, you may take a short course on photography so that your sense of photography will be improved, and you can identify all those spots from where you can capture excellent pictures in your hiking time.
Accessories: For the excellent and most precise shot, you should carry some accessories. You should bring a tripod, an external lens, a powerful light, extra batteries, and memory cards. The number of lenses and batteries will depend on your hiking time limitation and the depth of the views.
You may take suggestions from previous hikers. You may also carry a solar-powered charger. In recent days, there are many tripods and lenses for smartphones in the market. Those accessories will improve your photography experience. And most importantly, try to take all the light accessories. You don’t need to carry more than one lens if it is not necessary.
Final Words
Now, all these tips are essential to follow if you want to have a better experience of photography in your hiking. Although it doesn’t matter whether you are caring only your smartphone or a professional camera, we recommend you for a great and awesome hiking experience that you and your teammates at least should manage a professional camera.
You may hire one. With a professional camera, you can capture all those pictures more naturally. That will make your memories more colorful. If you follow all the tips, then we can expect that your all captures will be your golden memories. So, make your hiking pictures awesome with our recommended tips. All the best.
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Hi, I am John Campbell, an outdoor enthusiast. Just like you, I value the habitat, heritage and tradition of great outdoors. I do my best to make sure the correct research, writing, and photo are shown on Tacticalgearslab.com. Indeed, I am committed to preserving a great online experience for you.