Ned's Top 25 Tips for Travel Photographers

Great travel photography requires much the same of photographers as any photographic genre; advanced planning, preparation, a willingness to adjust when at the site of the shooting session and both technical and artistic photographic knowledge.

I've got twenty-five great tips to help you bring home quality travel images.

Advanced Planning:

Locate specific locations and events at your destination:
Once you decide on your destination(s), it's import to plan and prioritize your visit to include the specific locations and events you want to see and photograph, to ensure you'll have time enough for the ones considered essential. While planning, look for unique sites, people, landscapes, etc. to photograph.

Create shot lists:
For each destination location you plan to visit, create a list of photographs you want to make. Plan as many shots in advance as possible, both specific and general. Look for positions which may or may not be normally visited by people traveling to a particular site, to utilize for photographs.

Understanding and Achieving Image Focus and Sharpness: Part IV

Image sharpness depends on multiple factors including focus.
While it's true an image can't be sharp unless the subject is in focus, the converse is not necessarily true, that an image which is in focus, will necessarily be sharp. Image sharpness is fundamentally controlled by focus, but there are other important factors which enable in-focus images to be sharp.

In Part I we looked at how modern digital cameras autofocus (AF), and what factors influence AF systems' ability to focus quickly and accurately.

In Part II, we discussed choosing the best focus mode for a particular subject, manual or autofocus, or using them together, as well as single versus continuous focus, all to achieve a solid focus for a variety of situations common to travel photographers.

In Part III, we got to the nitty-gritty of using autofocus and manual focus, including looking at the different AF area and tracking modes, and focus locking methods.

In Part IV, below, we discuss photographer focus technique, and other factors which enable photographers to make sharp images.