DA's 10 Good Habits for Successful Travel Photography

During the PhotoMalaysia PhotoSafari Experience (PMPE3) outings in Cambodia and Vietnam, and next year to Laos, Nepal and the Old Silk Road, Maxby and I try to tell our participants all of the hard lessons we've learned during our lifelong adventure in photography. We have a list of nearly a hundred good habits for successful Travel Photography. We also have similar lists for How to Compose a Compelling Picture, How to Shoot Better Street Photography, How to shoot Real Black and White, How to Shoot Landscape Photography, and also scores of other How to Shoot Situations, such as How to shoot Silhouettes, How to shoot Sunsets, How to shoot Sports, How to shoot Children, etc. etc.. Here are just 10 Good Habits to develop for Successful Travel Shots. We'll give you the other 90 at the next PMPE4 in Laos.

1.

Get up early in the morning. The best light for photography is sidelight because side lighting helps to give form, shape & texture to objects you are photographing. Crowds are also thinner in the morning, which allows you more perspectives to shoot. The light is best in the 3 hours after sunrise and the 3 hours before sunset. A Misty morning especially, is an opportunity for some really great photos. The picture below was shot early one morning in the highlands of Central Vietnam.

One Misty Morning in the Dalat Highlands, Vietnam
Camera: Kwannon 5DM2
Lens: EF 24 f/1.4L


2.

Carry a good range of lenses so you can shoot from a wide angle view to a medium telephoto view. Ignoring Little Miss Hessy for a moment, a Full Frame body is the next best instrument for Landscapes and for Travel Photography. Prime lenses are better & sharper than zooms. Leg zoom and a set of fast primes comprising 24mm, 50mm, 100mm and 200mm would be the ideal kit. Alternatively a set of zooms such as 16-35mm, 24-100mm and 70-200mm would be more convenient. Dont buy Zoom Lenses with a multiple of more than 3x or 4x. A huge zoom range can only be made at the expense of picture quality. The recommended lenses refer to the angle of view for FF bodies. Use your DSLR crop factor to find the equivalent angle of view for cropped frame sensors. For example, multiply by 1.5 for Nikon and 1.6 for Canon. So a 50mm standard lens on a Nikon cropped sensor body will actually give an angle of view equivalent to a 75mm (ie 50 x 1.5). You therefore need a lens with a focal length of 33mm to get the angle of view of a 50mm (ie. 50/1.5). A fast 50mm standard lens is also a good addition to your kit for those low light indoor shoots, as well as for creating pictures with excellent bokeh. They are relatively cheap and are a great value for money purchase.

3.

If you are paranoid like me, carry a spare DSLR body when you travel, or at least carry a high end P&S in your travel kit. The invincible great 5D Mk2 , age less than a few months, died on me in Vietnam, flashing Error 20 in her dying breath. Thank goodness I had a P&S and also a Vietnamese friend who loaned me a 50D. I must add however, that my ultra reliable 1DsM2 has never given me any problems over the last four years. My new Kwannon G11 P&S has been unbeatable. I've discovered that in some situations, the pictures I shot with my P&S were much better than the ones shot with my high end DSLR. This is true especially for awkward angle shots, where the swivel LCD of my G11 is extremely useful and versatile. Sometimes a P&S is also quicker, unobstrusive and more convenient, especially in Street shoots. But a P&S is not a DSLR and you shouldn't embarrass it by asking it to do DSLR type of duties. But its a great spare camera for Travel Photography minus Landscapes. A high end P&S could also be all that you may need if you intend to use your images only for the internet.

4.

A laptop is too inconvenient to lug around. Besides the weight, you also have to worry about security. Invest in a good digital wallet. Forget the ones with the viewing screen. The OS for these image viewers sits on the HDDs and its not possible to change the HDDs when you need more space during an extended trip. Choose a Digital Wallet like theNexto Ultra or Nexto Extreme which allows you to simply buy a new notebook HDD from a local computer shop, to replace the built in HDD when it becomes full. If you MUST carry a Laptop, take a look at the newer tiny Netbook Laptops. They are excellent for surfing and web browsing,for MS office duties, and also an additional image storage alternative.

5.

Carry a light tripod. And always use it. Nothing is more frustrating than to get a good shot and to discover when you get home, that it has been ruined by the shakes. I use aGitzo 1541T for travelling. Its light, its stable but its expensive. At home, and for more stationary use, I have a tough Manfrotto 055MF3. A tripod is especially useful for Landscapes where you want to use hyperfocusing to get the maximum depth of field. Take heed. The shakes is more common than you think. If you find a tripod is too inconvenient to carry, at least carry a monopod or a Gorillapod. You definitely need a tripod to get perfect shots in this kind of lighting condition. .

Daphne at Ha Long Beach, Vietnam
Camera: Kwannon Powershot G11


6.

Dont shoot only wide angles with the focusing set to infinity all the time. Get in close and shoot interesting details too. Often close up details can give an interesting abstract feel to a photograph. The photo below is a close up of the wheel & hub of an old steam locomotive in Dalat City. The wide frontal view of the train is shown below it.

Steam Locomotive Wheel, Dalat Railway Station, Vietnam
Camera Powershot G11
Shutterspeed 1/30 sec, f/2.8


Steam Locomotive Engine, Dalat Railway Station, Vietnam
Camera Powershot G11
Shutterspeed 1/125 sec, f/8


7.

Shoot your subjects in both portrait and landscape modes. You'll find it gratifying when you get home, to discover that you still have a choice to select which version is better. The two pictures below shows the same scene shot in portrait and Landscape mode.

Long Hai Beach & Fishing Village, Central Vietnam
Camera: Kwannon 5DM2
Lens: EF 24 f/1.4L, F/11, ISO400


Long Hai Beach & Fishing Village, Central Vietnam
Camera: Kwannon 5DM2
Lens: EF 24 f/1.4L, F/11, ISO400


8.

Dont just shoot at eye level. Often, an unconventional perspective makes your picture more compelling. There are at least 6 perspectives that you can try out - shooting from below, from above, from the side, against the light, shooting a long view, or shooting close up. Here's an old Master shooting blind, a potentially compelling image from a low angle, early one morning at Long Hai Beach in Vietnam, during a recent PhotoMalaysia PhotoSafari Experience (PMPE) Outing. A swivel LCD like on my G11 would be ideal for situations like these. I wish Kwannon would put a swivel LCD viewer on the 1DsM4. I'd certainly buy it if they did it.

Camera: Kwannon 5DM2
Lens: EF 50 f/1.2L, F/5.6, ISO1250


9.

It's easy to shoot tight portraits of wrinkled faces with a long lens. However, a succession of tight portraits can become quite boring to view. Summon up a bit of courage. Get in close, make friends with your subject, and get a more intimate shot with a wide angle lens like a 24mm too. A wide angle shot made with the camera held close to the subject makes you (and the viewer) feel that they are a part of the picture. Get low with a wide angle lens for a more compelling perspective. A wide angle shot puts the face in context by including a bit of the environment that your subject is in. A wide angle picture suggests your involvement in your shot. Using a telephoto on people gives a paparazzi feel to your image, suggesting a sneak and steal approach by photography cowards.

Rickshawman of Ho Chi Min City. 
Night Shot with available light
Camera Powershot G11
Shutterspeed 1/8 sec, f/3.2, ISO 400


10.

Dont always keep your DSLR on Program or Full Auto modes. Use a large aperture to isolate your subject by blurring the background. Or use a slow shutter speed for some creative effects. Flash shouldn't only be confined to night shots. Use flash in daylight to light up a back lighted subject, or a subject in shadows. Read your camera manual about how to use slow sync mode in poor light, to give extra time for your camera to record ambient light before the flash is fired to light up your main subject

Clown of Colmar Tropicale
Kwannon 1DsM2
EF 85mm L at f/1.2


To learn more good habits for Travel Photography, consider joining one of the PhotoMalaysia PhotoSafari Experience excursions. Here's a picture of some of the participants of PMPE3, in the middle of Vietnam, shooting the amazing Lake Dai Ninh clouded over with a thick morning mist. Definitely an unforgettable experience for most of us. 

Misty Morning at Dai Ninh Lake, Vietnam.
Camera: Kwannon 5DM2
Lens: EF 135mm f/2L

__________________
Yusuf Hashim