Outdoor Photography

Outdoor photography is an impossibly broad subject to cover in a single tutorial, so this section is more of a collection of tips and suggestion for various types of scenes.

General

Read the section Composing the Shot if you have not done so already. Learning the principles of composition in that section is the first step toward becoming a good outdoor photographer.

Be prepared for the shot. Often,  a shot opportunity will be there one minute (or a few seconds) and gone the next. This is particularly true of nature shots where the subject may flit away at any time, or shots taken from a car, boat, train, or plane, but also true of shooting your children playing in the back yard. Try to anticipate the lens and camera settings that you will need when the shot materializes, and set up the camera beforehand, accordingly.

Shadows and Light

The interplay of light and shadows is a very important consideration when composing an outdoor shot. It lends interest and depth. It can turn an otherwise flat and dull shot into an intriguing scene. You don't always want to follow the old rule of always facing away from the sun when you shoot. More interesting photos  can be obtained with the light coming from the side or from an angle. Photos taken facing directly into the sun (see below) can produce a nice "halo" effect around the subject.

Various combinations of shade and sunlight can create tricky shooting conditions that can confuse the light meter of your camera. Exposure bracketing is a good technique to try for all different lighting conditions . Some of the situations you might encounter are:

• Shooting from light into shadow
  This situation can be tricky because the default exposure set by the camera will almost always result in a shaded subject that is too dark.
  If you are in the light close to a subject in shadow, you might be able to use  the fill-in flash technique: You force the flash to fire when you take the picture, illuminating the shaded subject. If the subject is farther away, then you can employ the partial metering mode or centerweighted average mode.
  
  
• Shooting from shadow into light
  Here the problem is the opposite. The lighted  sections of the photo will usually be too light with the default exposure setting. This will be less of a problem if the entire scene is in the light. Centerweighted average metering can be tried for this condition.
  

Landscape shots

For most landscape shots, you will want to increase the depth of field.  This can be done manually by using a smaller aperture size and by using a lens with a shorter focal length. If you want the entire range of distance to be in focus, you can use the camera's automatic depth of  field feature. You may want to try experimenting with different depths of field for a landscape shot. Using a shorter depth of field to blur objects in the background can be used to deemphasize a distracting background and emphasize the subject.

Nature Shots

Here, not surprisingly, the telephoto lens is the most important tool. This works out well, because the long focal length of the lens will narrow the depth of field, causing a blurred, fuzzy, background which is what you usually want for a nature shot. The above holds true of both telephoto shots and closeup (macro) shots.