Photography; Nature Photography

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Subjects of nature photography are basically; land, lakes, seas, mountains that are not changed or modified by human, also non-domestic animal and plant species. So a rose, sheep, dog or cat can not be the subject of nature photography. Of course you don’t have to be so strict about that, but these are the most common rules for nature photography contests.

There are lots of photography equipment that you can use for nature photography, but even most simple camera can be enough most of the times. And having a tripod and a shutter release cable will make the things easier for you under low light conditions.

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If you want to have significant results, increase the depth of field by using a narrow aperture such as f/16 or f/22 to keep every detail in focus in the scene. And as you know narrow aperture, lets smaller amount of light into the camera so your shutter speed may decrease and this is when a tripod comes in handy for preventing shaking.

Light

In nature photography, we mostly use daylight. Best light conditions for nature photography are “Golden Hours” which are first lights in early morning and the last hours of evening when the sun sets. Don’t miss that hours! Waking up early in the morning and giving up a couple of hours of sleep may reward you magnificent photographs of nature.

You can take pictures, in the different hours of day, but none of them will be as impressive as the “Golden Hours”. Especially in the noon when sunlight comes with a vertical angle and creates strong and dark shadows, taking nice pictures is really hard.

Rain

I already told that there’s no bad weather conditions for photography, actually bad weather conditions makes extraordinary images for us to capture and rain is one of them. Rain is the thing that keeps nature alive so it is one of the most beautiful natural events. One day try getting out to the nature or streets after rain but don’t forget to protect yourself and your camera from getting wet. Colors are more saturated after rain.

Equipment

As i mentioned earlier in this post, it is hard to tell must-have equipments, since even the most simple camera can be enough to take gorgeous shots. But of course some equipment will help you to take better pictures. A wide angle lens is good for mountains, valleys and large plains, while a tele lens helps you shoot animals and plants from a distance. If you have 300 mm-f/2.8 or 600 mm-f/4 lenses that lets a considerable amount of light in and allows you to shoot a distant subject with a fast shutter speed, then you have a great opportunity to take wild life shots.

Filters are also important at nature photography. Especially ND, natural density filters, increase the contrast and saturation thus helping you to capture better nature pictures. Nd filters, eliminates the reflections from non-metallic surfaces, including, glasses and water. Since you are taking nature pictures, eliminating reflections of water can be one of the things that you need. UV filters and skylight filters are useful too for eliminating UV lights. And graduated filters helps us to increase the contrast and saturation of the sky.