Introduction to Digital Nature Photography

This will be only a simple introduction to the basics of digital nature photography. Certainly not everything there is to know on the subject, but more than enough to get started on.

What You Will Need

The only thing you need to get started in digital nature photography is a decent digital camera. You don’t need a $4,000 camera or loads of fancy equipment to take great nature photos! You can get a digital camera for a few hundred dollars that will do all that you need and provide plenty of picture quality for almost everything you might want to do with your pictures.

There are a few specs that you will want to look for in a digital camera:

Resolution
The main thing to look for in a digital camera is at least 5 Megapixels resolution. This will be the main factor in determining the maximum size at which your photos will be able to print. With 5 Megapixels you should be able to easily print a good quality 8x10 inch print, and probably a decent print up to 11x14 inches.

Almost any digital camera on the market today will easily exceed 5 Megapixels.
Exposure Control
For someone just getting started in digital nature photography, a simple point-and-shoot camera will probably be best. But you will want to make sure that your camera has settings that will give you some manual control. These are often referred to as PASM modes, relating to Program Mode, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual Mode. We’ll look at these in more depth later, but for now just understand that while you don’t absolutely need these modes, they will provide more control that you will probably want to use later on.
Zoom
Another thing you’ll most likely want to look for in a digital camera is at least some optical zoom. The keyword to look for here is optical. Most digital cameras will mention a certain amount of digital zoom, but digital zoom will degrade image quality, and should generally not be used. A decent amount of optical zoom will let you close in on your subject a little bit when you want to.

What You Need to Know

There really isn’t that much involved in nature photography. The basic idea is that you point your camera at the scene you want to capture and press the shutter button. Certainly, there are other things to keep in mind compositionally and many other technical options for capturing the image just right, but the basic idea is as simple as point and shoot.

For someone just starting out, there is no need to make things any more complicated than that. Simply set your camera on Auto Mode and begin shooting.

In Auto Mode your camera will look at the scene and attempt to select what it thinks are the best settings for the scene. This will often provide you with a very good image. But the camera does not have human intuition or an understanding of exactly how you may want to capture the scene. Eventually you'll probably want a little more control than what Auto Mode can provide over how your camera captures the scene.

In order to select certain settings on your camera for specific situations, you will need to understand a few basic concepts about the settings that your camera offers.

ISO
The first setting to consider is the ISO number. This number represents how sensitive the camera’s image sensor is to light. The higher the ISO setting, the more light your camera will capture, and the brighter the image will appear.

This setting will likely be specified as Auto ISO, ISO100, ISO200, ISO400, ISO800, etc.

Higher ISO numbers can sometimes be useful, such as if you are taking pictures in very dim light, but on consumer-grade digital cameras, the higher ISO numbers will begin to cause problems. The higher the ISO number, the more digital "noise" you will see in the image. And at high ISOs on many cameras, the image will begin to appear choppy or blurry, especially if you are using the image for printing.

As a general rule, I would recommend that you should always try to use the lowest ISO setting possible for the situation, which will normally mean using at or around ISO100.

The examples on the right show a close-up of a coin taken with a Panasonic DMC-FZ50 at different ISO settings. As you can see, image quality is greatly deteriorated at higher ISOs.
Aperture
The next setting is one that determines the amount of light that comes through the camera’s lens. This is referred to as the aperture setting or F-Stop, and is often specified as f/value, such as f/2.8, f/4, f/8, etc. The higher the number, the smaller the hole in the lens, the less light that makes it through. The lower the number, the larger the hole, the more light gets through.

A key consideration when it comes to aperture is Depth of Field.

Just like the human eye, the camera cannot focus on an object that is very close and an object that is very far away at the same time. Only a certain amount of the scene can be in focus at a given time. Depth of Field refers to how much of the scene can be in focus at once.

A higher F-Stop (smaller hole) will give you a greater Depth of Field, allowing you to capture more of the scene in focus. A smaller F-Stop (larger hole) will give you a smaller Depth of Field, meaning that you will only be able to have objects close to the camera in focus or objects far away in focus, but not both.
Shutter Speed
The final control that will determine the exposure of your picture is Shutter Speed. Shutter Speed describes how long the camera’s shutter stays open capturing light, and is measured in seconds or fractions of a second.

You will often see shutter speed represented as 1/2000 sec, 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and 1 second.

Beyond just determining the amount of light that gets to the sensor, the shutter speed will also determine how much movement will show up in the picture. If the camera is only capturing light for 1/500 of a second, for example, no matter how much you or the subject of the picture was moving, it will appear frozen. On the other hand, if the camera is capturing light for a full second, or even much less, any movement in the scene will appear as a blur.

Slow shutter speeds can be a problem in many situations, such as if you are trying to hold the camera by hand and want a crisp image, but they can also be used in many cases to show action, such as to blur water when taking a picture of a stream or waterfall.
Putting It All Together
Sometimes you may want to use the camera's Auto setting and let the camera choose all of the settings. Also, there will probably be times when you will want to use Manual mode and have complete control of all the settings mentioned above to achieve a certain effect. But in many cases, you may want to select some of the settings yourself, but still use the cameras built-in light meter to aid in choosing a good exposure and control the other settings.

The two main settings for this are Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority.
- Shutter Priority
  In Shutter Priority mode you select the shutter speed that you want to use and the camera selects an aperture setting based on the scene, trying to provide a good exposure.
  
  This can be useful if you are trying to capture a scene with movement and you know that you want to use a specific shutter speed. You set the shutter speed and the camera does the rest.
- Aperture Priority
  In Aperture Priority mode you select the Aperture size and the camera chooses the shutter speed. Aperture Priority is the mode that I use 99.9% of the time, and is, in my opinion, the most useful mode for most nature photography.
  
  The main reason for this is that unless I’m shooting a waterfall or something else that I want to control the movement on, the most important thing to me is the depth of field. Do I want as much of the scene in focus as possible, or rather, do I only want the foreground in focus?
  
  Using Aperture Priority, I can select the depth of field that I want the scene to have and let the camera take care of the rest.
- Exposure Values (EVs)
  When you are using one of the Priority modes, allowing the camera to control one of the settings, the camera will modify the setting(s) it is controlling based on what the camera thinks is a "correct" exposure. But the camera is not perfect. It will not always set the exposure just right.
  
  Because of this, most cameras will allow you to modify the Exposure Values (EVs). You will normally see these as a number with a plus or minus in front.
  
  A negative EV, such as -1 EV will tell the camera to expose the image a little darker than normal. A positive EV, such as +1 EV will tell the camera to expose the image a little brighter than normal.
  
  With my camera and for the type of photography I normally do, I tend to shoot at between -1/3 EV and -1 EV, depending on the conditions. But the specific EV setting you will need will depend on your particular camera and lighting conditions.

Basic Compositional Guidelines

Don't center your subject
This is often referred to as the Rule of Thirds. The basic idea here is that you should generally not center your subject in the picture. It’s that simple.

Centering the subject tends to create a boring picture. There are many exceptions to this, but it is something to keep in mind.
Level your Horizon
If the horizon was level to begin with, most people will find it odd and distracting if the horizon is not level in your picture. This same idea should be considered whenever there is any kind of familiar object that is normally straight, such as tree trunks, water lines, etc.
Look for Lines
Think about lines in your picture, especially diagonal lines, as they tend to imply movement.
Remember the Foreground
Think about the foreground in your scene.

A lot of times the main subject is the landscape forming the background of a picture. It is easy to think only about the main subject of the picture, but if you take a moment and look for something of interest in the foreground to include in the picture, you can add a much greater sense of perspective and depth to a picture.
Think About Format
Don't shoot all landscapes horizontally. Try framing the scene with vertical vs. horizontal orientation.

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