Great Photography Tips for Your Next Hike

• Take a camera on your next hike
• How to take a great photograph of wildflowers during a day hike
• Photo tips for capturing autumn leaf colors on day hikes
• Don't take big videocamera on hike with kids
• Great activity for hiking kids: Picture Hunt

Learn about trail guidebooks available in the Hittin’ the Trail series.

How to take a great photograph of wildflowers during a day hike

Pasque flowers usually are the first blossom to be spotted
on Upper Midwest prairies.

With spring’s arrival, wildflowers soon will start to bloom across the United States and Canada. You may be tempted to retain your memories of the beautiful wildflowers during a hike by taking photographs of them – but as you may have discovered, photographing wildflowers isn’t as simple as point and shoot.

Fortunately, by following a few simple guidelines, anyone can take great pictures of wildflowers.

First and foremost, photograph wildflowers on overcast or cloudy days. Sunlight casts harsh shadows and leaves bright highlights on blossoms. Clouds, however, diffuse the light, resulting in an even distribution or balance of light from the sky. If hiking when the day is not overcast, wait for a cloud to block the sun or limit pictures to wildflowers growing in the shade.

When taking the photo, position your camera's sensor (It typically is a small dot at the 1 or 2 o'clock position relative to the camera lens.) so that it's parallel to the flower's petals. This ensures the petals are sharp and in focus on the picture.

Next, if possible use a shutter speed of at least 1/200 second. Even the slightest breeze will cause the blossom to blur if using a slower shutter speed. The alternatives are to wait for a break in the wind or to hike when the air is absolutely still.

Use a telephoto lens with a short minimum focus distance to improve your photograph’s sharpness. The minimum distance should be five feet or less. This will allow the bloom to fill the frame yet remain focused.

Finally, select a background that doesn’t distract from the blossom. The lack of a contrasting color (such as a white flower against a sandy background) will prevent the bloom from standing out. Other background distractions are some shape that stands out, such as the edge of a fencepost behind the blossom. The best background often is one that’s a shade of green and that’s "far away" from the flower, so that the leaves are out of focus on the picture.

Learn about trail guidebooks available in the Hittin’ the Trail series.

Photo tips for capturing autumn leaf colors on day hikes

When photographing autumn leaves, contrast the fall foliage against blue sky.

Sometimes when taking a day hiking during autumn, you want to capture the beauty of an area’s fall foliage to share with others. Here are some great photo tips to consider when out on a fall day hike.

Plan ahead
Know what kinds of trees will be on the trail and if their leaves actually have changed color. Determine how long you have to drive to the trailhead and walk the trail otherwise you might not reach the site you wish to photograph until nightfall. Winging it often will lead to disappointment.

Time your shots
Sunlight comes from the side and is at its warmest at dawn and dusk. Photographs taken early in the morning and late in the afternoon, close to those two times, tend to brings out the leaf colors.

Keep the sun to your back
If you shoot into the sunlight, glare will wash out the autumn leaf colors. Always take the shot from the angle in which the sun is directly to your back.

Contrast autumn leaves with something blue…
Fall foliage reflecting off a blue lake/river of set against a blue sky will make the leaf colors pop. Using only brown tree trunks to contrast with the leaves will flatten the colors.

…or better yet, contrast with something gray
As saturated colors, autumn leaves actually will look great against gray, overcast skies. The color from the obscured sun will be soft and diffused so that glare isn’t an issue.

Follow rule of thirds
Don’t just focus on the leaves. Include some foreground (the ground or waterway before the trees or even the tree trunks, especially if they have color to them) and some background (such as sky). The photo then consists of three parts – the ground/waterway/tree trunks, the colored leaves, and the sky. Just make sure the leaves take up a larger percentage than either of the other two parts alone but not more than the other two parts combined.

Learn about trail guidebooks available in the Hittin’ the Trail series.