billboards, booths or other eyesores, that
you can plan around and avoid?
Find out where to purchase a local
SIM card for your mobile phone. Being
connected locally is such a big bonus
when in a foreign place. Don’t forget
to “unlock” your phone so that you can
use carriers other than your domestic
service provider.
Vantage points. Do some online
research and network with local pho-
tographers and photography communities
to find the best views and determine how
to access those areas. If you don’t ask,
you may never know. Social media travel
groups and photography groups are also
excellent resources.
Set It Up
While I appreciate candid photos, there’s
nothing like having control of a situation,
and staging portraits and cultural shots
can be fun.
Never be shy to ask people to pose
for you. While some people will say no,
you’ll be surprised at how many say yes
if you seem friendly and happy. Women
photographers have a definite advantage
over men with this tip as they can appear
friendlier and less intimidating than a sin-
gle man who’s asking women or children
to pose for him.
Consider renting props as we did in my
photo with the camel on my Jordan tour
a few years ago. The dog was an unex-
pected bonus and the icing on the cake. I
got both the planned shot along with the
spontaneity of having the dog pop in for
a cameo. Truly the best of both worlds.Playing It Safe
I can replace a camera or a lens, but I
most certainly cannot replace a one-of-
a-kind photograph. This is why I always
play it safe and back up all my digital
information with a variety of rugged and
dependable portable hard drives.
On the road, I transfer all my RAW
files directly to two portable hard drives
as well as to my laptop hard drive. There’s
a common saying in the tech world: “If
it’s not in three places, it does not exist.”
I also keep the two portable drives in
separate bags or locations. In case some-
thing happens to one (theft, fire, loss,
etc.), I still have a backup copy or two.
If your camera has a second memory
card slot, another way to help ensure
your image files are safe and backed up
is to set your camera to use that slot to
save a duplicate copy of every image.
Cards are cheap today, and your photos
are priceless.
In my home office, I transfer the RAW
files onto two mirrored RAID systems
that use RAID 5. This ensures that all
my photos and other digital assets are
extremely well protected. I also keep all
this data backed up onto a set of off-site
drives. If ever there was a fire, flood ortheft at my office, my business won’t
be ruined, and all my photographs are
protected and secured off-site.Staying Focused
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your
imagination is out of focus.” –Mark Twain
Achieving an in-focus photo is key
when doing any kind of photography,
and with travel photography this is cru-
cial. With innovations like focus peaking
on today’s mirrorless cameras, focus-
ing manually is more accurate than ever
before. I rarely use autofocus unless I’m
shooting moving objects handheld.- The use of a good tripod is a must. More
on this later. - Learning how to focus stack in Photo-
shop will greatly improve the sharpness
of your photographs. - Stick to apertures of ƒ/8 to ƒ/16 to get
the ideal sharpness where you most
want it in your frame. - Keep the ISO as low as possible. Digital
noise will make your images look soft. - When using a tripod, turn off your lens
stabilization if possible. It can cause
microtremors in the lens when there’s
nothing to stabilize. - You get what you pay for. Use a high-qual-
ity lens. There is usually a good reason
why better lenses are more expensive. - Use your camera’s two-second timer
when shooting on a tripod. This will
give your camera the chance to stop
vibrating from even a minor shake. - Don’t use UV/Skylight filters. Why put
an extra bit of glass that can get dirty on
two sides in front of your awesome lens? - Adjust your diopter. You may think you
don’t need glasses, but... - Learn to sharpen images in post-pro-
duction. You’ll thank me later.
The Beauty Of Blue Hour
Most photographers know about the
beautiful soft light of sunset and sunrise
otherwise known as the golden hour or
magic hour, but don’t forget about “blue
hour.” This is my absolute favorite time
to shoot.
Blue hour is that brief time before sun-Set It Up. Wadi Rum, Jordan. Canon EOS 5DS R, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II
USM at 24mm. Exposure: 1/125 sec., ƒ/4, ISO 100.outdoorphotographer.com May 2019 41