From capturing voracious lions feasting on their kill to documenting various bird species on your outdoor adventure, nature photography is a wonderful hobby to pursue. While buying an expensive camera and snapping can be tempting, your phone camera is a great starting point for your outdoor photography journey.
Unsplash/Joey Huang
Are you looking for tips and tricks to optimise your phone photo-taking skills in nature? Here are a few key tweaks to upgrade and enhance your mobile photography methods on a safari or outdoor excursion.
Enable grid lines
Enabling the grid lines feature on your phone will ensure that you can take landscape photography on your phone and make it perfectly positioned. Often, taking phone photos optimally aligned for your shot in the bush can be tricky.
Grid lines are also a great tool if you’re looking to have your target matter in the middle of the shot, as then you can align the centre grid block to include your focal point.
Don’t zoom in to capture a subject
While it might seem like a good idea to zoom in on your subject, this will drastically decrease your image quality and may result in a blurry photo. Instead, you can take the shot and zoom in manually at another stage if you’re not happy with the result.
Get snapping at dawn or dusk
Often, harsh sun exposure in nature can dull beautiful scenery if you don’t opt to slap a filter on your picture. If you’re looking for an authentic photo with stunning natural light, sunrise and sunset are great times to capture nature at its finest. Overcast conditions where the sun is not entirely on display will soften your images.
Be comfortable & get to know your phone camera features
The great thing about smartphones is the wide selection of camera features available for shutterbugs. From altering aesthetics with a filter to using various camera modes to capture the moment perfectly, several tools could make your photo a hit. Here are a few features to look out for:
- Burst mode – this option will take a number of images straight after the other in order to provide a series of pictures that you can choose from. This is handy when a moving animal passes by, and you’re looking for the perfect shot.
- Autofocus – by simply tapping on your screen to focus on your focal point, you’ll be sure to adjust the lighting and decrease the likelihood of your photo becoming blurry.
- Portrait mode – this will allow your focal point to stand out more and create a subtle blurring effect on the background.
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