Travel Photography: Making
Photos While Traveling Light

Traveling light but still making  travel photos
that you can sell to travel magazines, place
with stock houses, or use to make
presentation prints can be a challenge. No
matter if it is touring Coastal Mexico and the
Yucatan, hiking the Grand Canyon, or
squeezing into a slot canyon, traveling with a
minimum of camera gear and making
memorable photos can test your skills.  

Traveling Light
•        Whether digital or film based, you need
low ISO, good saturation and sharpness for
good prints or marketable photos.

1.  You could Ditch the Tripod. Forbidden in
many places, why not shed its four or more
pounds and trade it for a beanbag, the handy
stabilizer of wedding photographers. Place it
on walls, sign posts, restaurant tables, or the
top of a vehicle for camera support.  Buy a
half Kilo of beans locally, double wrap them
loolsy, donate them when done.
Carve a walking stick and use it like a
monopod. Steady the camera against light
poles, window frames, or benches to gain a
stop or two of shutter speed and depth-of-
field. Think sharpness, saturation, and depth
of field, especially if you will make large prints.

2. Graduated Neutral Density Filters.  The
average scene contains three or more stops
of light (areas of different exposure) on a
sunny day so you must balance your
exposure.  You can do that with a two-stop
graduated neutral density filter or a pair of
filters equalling three stops.  The screw-on
type has dark material on one half that will
absorb two stops (or more)of light then it  
transitions into clear glass.  
Amazing, but the sky stays saturated while the
foreground remains properly exposed,
especially in sunrise and sunset photos.  
Leave it on the camera.  Compensate for it by
reading the reflected light in the foreground  
and compensate for the dark material's
absorption of light. (adding one stop or less of
exposure) Check your image exposure and
make adjustments accordingly.
Takes a leap of faith, but if you test it before
your trip, you will prove to yourself that the
GND can saturate skies more efficiently than
a Polarizer because it doesn't turn skies black
nor does it absorb the stop and a half of light
that a Polarizer would gobble.

3. People.  Put people in the scene to give
added interest and scale.
Use a camera-mounted flash unit set on auto
during the day to light faces under hats or in
shade, putting catch lights in the eyes,
punching up the color, and elevating your
people shots to pro status. Get up close with
a wide-angle lens; shoot high, shoot low,
varying your point of view.
Dusk shots at markets, plazas, and beaches
produce nightlife, dining, and recreation
scenes.  The beanbag and the camera's self-
timer prevent camera shake.  You can
editorialize with selective sharpness, expose
automatically, determine the light levels, and
then go manual, varying the shutter speed for
effect.  The GND will moderate hot spots like
street lights or bright sky.  When using flash,
you can use the GND to darken the
foreground areas.

4.  Match Your Shutter Speed to Your
Lens.  When hand holding your camera,
match the shutter speed to the focal length of
the lens.  Example: a 60mm lens requires a
shutter speed of 1/60 of a second or higher to
avoid camera shake when hand holding the
camera.  Match your 210mm zoom with at
least a 1/210-shutter speed.

5.  Lens Hood.  Shade the front lens element
to prevent lens flare; retain crucial color
saturation and contrast that you would loose if
the slightest bit of direct sunlight light enters
the lens.  

How Freeing.    Four pounds of camera gear,
half of it battery charger and batteries.
Freedom to shoot impromptu photos and to  
be more mobile and quicker at getting the
photos that tell your travel story.
Dave Hilbert's
www.SoftSeatTravel.com
Photo Tips when Traveling Light
Copyright   SoftSeatTravel
Travel Photography
Traveling Light
Graduated neutral density
filter in a Cokin brand
Professional holder
Graduated neutral
density filter, 2 stop
Joby Gorillapod, a great
tripod for sites,
churches tabletops.
Travel Photography:  What can a Graduated Neutral Density Filter Do For You?
Look at this comparison before and after and see how to improve your photos in the
camera rather than trying to rescue an unevenly exposed  photo in imaging software.  
Without the Graduated
Neutral Density Filter
With the addition of four
stops of graduated
Neutral Density Filter the
sky retains detail and
saturation (2, two-stop
filters)
Take a reflected
reading of the
foreground and one of
the sky.
If there is a three or
four stop difference,
expose for the
foreground and attach  
three to four -stops of  
Graduated Neutral
Density filter material
to your lens with the
dark side rotated
towards the top.
Good source for mail order Filters, film, and digital Photo products:
B&H Photo
420 ninth Ave
New York, NY 10001
800-947-7008

www.bhphotovideo.com
Not its intended
load, the Joby
Gorillapod
supporting a
four pound RB
6x7 at Glanum
Ruin in Provence
david@SoftSeatTravel.com