Take Your Holiday Photography to the Next Level

For budding amateur photographers, a holiday offers the perfect opportunity to get inspired and hone your photography skills.

If you are travelling abroad and are looking for that perfect photography opportunity, be it the chance to photograph birds on a Caribbean holiday, stunning desert landscapes in the Middle East or urban photography in one of the bustling cities of south east Asia, our guide will help to ensure you go armed with all the tools and information you need to come back with photographs to cherish.

Wildlife photography
The first thing any wildlife photographer needs, apart from a camera of course, is a telephoto lens, or zoom lens. A telephoto lens lets you get up close and personal without actually having to get up too close and disturb the wildlife!

Being able to get close enough to animals without disturbing or scaring them is very important. Generally, 300mm is the shortest focal length you should go equipped with, but 400-500mm is ideal.

Also, a good thing to remember is the longer the zoom, the more steady the camera needs to be to avoid motion blur, and if you don’t have a lens with IS (image stability), it would be safer to use a tripod when shooting over 300mm to produce the sharpest images.

Scenic photography
For scenic photography you will need a wide angle lens. Wide angle lenses have a very short focal length that will allow you to capture wide expanses such as sunsets and panoramic mountains views.

With the increased field of vision that is possible from wide angle lens, photographers have not only the ability to take stunning landscape photos, but can also get creative in cityscapes and even portrait photography. A common example is a technique whereby the photographer stands at the bottom of a skyscraper building and shoots straight up, a technique that can create a fantastic, vertigo-inducing image that can be quite dramatic.

Night Photography
Night photography can be an art in itself. Low light levels can make achieving the results you seek a tricky matter.

If you are looking to shoot night portraits, a flash is essential. For best results, an external flash should be used instead of the built-in flash found on most cameras. There are a number of reasons for this – red eye reduction is greatly enhanced with an external flash as the flash is much further from the lens; external flashes can also be maneuvered to bounce of walls and ceilings to produce a much softer light and more evenly lit scene.

For scenic nightscapes, a tripod is necessary to enable you to open up the shutter for a longer period. Something to watch out for though is moving traffic (which can actually create some interesting effects), people walking past and moving trees on windy nights. If you don’t have a remote cord to take the photo, we recommend setting the timer as pressing the shutter button is likely to cause the camera to move slightly – something that could spoil your photograph.

Filters
There are many filters on the market which will enable you to take stunning photos in varying conditions, and produce some great effects. Here is our guide to two of the most useful and how they work:

Neutral density filters – ND filters are grey filters which allow photographers more flexibility with exposure times and aperture settings.

Say for example you are on a beautiful beach with the sea breaking over rocks, and you wish to take a photograph with a very slow shutter speed in order to capture a sea with a soft, foamy look. This would not be possible under normal circumstances as too much light would result in an overexposed image. However, with an ND filter, you are able to effectively control the amount of light and take these types of shot, even in daylight.

Polarising filter – polarising filters are fantastic for darkening bright skies and reducing reflections and haze, resulting in an increase in overall saturation within the image.

Polarising filters work well when photographing water or glass cabinets, for example, as they cut down greatly on reflection.

Now you have our top tips for holiday photography, all you need to do now is choose where to go. The following are destinations you might like to consider:

Caribbean holidays: Sunsets, beautiful beaches and plenty of local colour
Wildlife holiday in Canada: Polar bears, wolves, grizzly bears and expansive landscapes
Holidays in Thailand: Scenic islands and limestone cliffs, lively street markets and colourful food vendors
Middle-East and Egypt holidays: Sand dunes and atmospheric desert forts
Shanghai and Hong Kong: Futuristic cityscapes, bustling harbours and dramatic night shots
Sri Lanka: Vibrant green tea plantations, ancient temples and Buddha statues

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