Everything you need for spring photo shoots in nature | Articles | Photo, video, optics

Get­ting ready for spring togeth­er! Pho­to: goodfon.com

The days are get­ting longer, the sun is get­ting brighter, streams are break­ing through the ice, and flow­ers are break­ing through the snow. Spring is com­ing, which means that very soon we will go to nature with cam­eras at the ready! To be ful­ly equipped, we offer you a selec­tion of the nec­es­sary equip­ment and pho­to acces­sories for spring shoot­ings.

Lens

Let’s start with the basic thing — the lens. To choose the best lens for spring pho­tog­ra­phy, you need to decide what kind of pho­tos you are going to take.

A pop­u­lar genre of spring pho­tog­ra­phy is the first flow­ers. To cap­ture the buds emerg­ing from under the snow, the best option is a spe­cial macro lens. A macro lens allows you to cap­ture an object at a scale of 1:1.

Such optics can focus at a very short dis­tance, but at the same time it does not need to be brought too close, obscur­ing the object from the light. A macro lens allows you to pho­to­graph not only flo­ra, but also fau­na — with it you will not need to approach a shy insect to pho­to­graph it.

At the same time, many macro lens­es are good not only for shoot­ing small objects close-ups, but also for por­traits or astropho­tog­ra­phy.

Our guide will help you choose a macro lens for your cam­era.

Flow­ers and bees are eas­i­est to cap­ture with a macro lens. Pho­to: Hiếu Hoàng / pexels.com

If your tar­get is larg­er and more mobile — birds and ani­mals that rejoice in the spring for­est after a long win­ter, then you will need a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent lens. To shoot from a con­sid­er­able dis­tance, you need a long lens — a tele­pho­to lens.

Tele­pho­to lens­es are a large-sized acces­so­ry, they are used for shoot­ing wildlife and for sports events. At the same time, tele­zooms are bet­ter suit­ed for birds and ani­mals — tele­pho­to lens­es that allow you to change the focal length. A good option would be a uni­ver­sal tele­zoom with a range of around 100–400mm.

And this is how you can “catch” a bird only with a tele­pho­to. Pho­to: Las­z­lo Fatrai / pexels.com

And if you want to shoot beau­ti­ful por­traits in the spring for­est, then a por­trait fix is ​​ide­al. These are mod­er­ate­ly tele­pho­to lens­es (around 85mm) with good aper­ture (f/2.8 and brighter), which allow you to get a beau­ti­ful pic­ture with a pleas­ant back­ground blur.

If you don’t have a clear “spe­cial­iza­tion” yet and want to pho­to­graph every­thing a lit­tle bit, then your option is a uni­ver­sal zoom lens. This glass has an equiv­a­lent focal length of 24–70mm. You can read how to choose your first lens here and here.

It’s great to have your lens weath­er­proof, since the weath­er is so unpre­dictable in spring.

Tripod

A spring pho­tog­ra­pher’s best friend is a tri­pod. A tri­pod is an indis­pens­able com­pan­ion for both land­scape and macro pho­tog­ra­phy. It allows you to cor­rect­ly posi­tion the cam­era, cor­rect­ly crop the pic­ture, and not fill up the hori­zon. You can mount your cam­era on a tri­pod and wait for the right moment when the sun comes out of the clouds or the flower stops sway­ing in the wind — as long as you need. But most impor­tant­ly, a tri­pod helps to get rid of the “shake” when shoot­ing hand­held.

If your main goal is land­scapes, then you need a full-sized tri­pod, but it is bet­ter not too large, because you have to car­ry and car­ry it with you. So trav­el tripods for trav­el­ers are suit­able.

It is very good if your mod­el has a small min­i­mum work­ing height — about 10 cm. So you can cre­ate pic­tures where in the fore­ground there are details that are locat­ed near the ground: flow­ers, stones, leaves. These tripods are also good for macro pho­tog­ra­phy. An exam­ple is the Man­frot­to MT190XPRO3.

These are the pho­tos you can get if your tri­pod has a suit­able min­i­mum work­ing height. Pho­to: Vyach­eslav Luzanov/krymphoto.com

If you don’t pre­tend to be an advanced land­scape painter and you have a light enough cam­era, you can often get by with a mini tri­pod. It will be a ver­sa­tile option for shoot­ing flow­ers, and for trav­el, and for every­day city pho­tog­ra­phy. Of course, get­ting a lot of dif­fer­ent angles will be more dif­fi­cult, but you will save a lot of space in your back­pack.

Here’s an angle you can get with a mini tri­pod. Pho­to: Lar­ry C. Price / learnandsupport.getolympus.com

An inter­est­ing option would be a mini tri­pod with flex­i­ble legs, like Ray­Lab MTF-SC or Joby Goril­la­Pod. Thanks to the flex­i­ble legs, this tri­pod can be wrapped around tree branch­es or placed on uneven sur­faces. This design sig­nif­i­cant­ly increas­es the num­ber of avail­able angles.

Goril­la­Pod can get hooked on any­thing — a use­ful option in the spring for­est. Pho­to: joby.com

ND filter

Sun­ny days are com­ing, which means it’s time to get out the ND fil­ter (neu­tral den­si­ty fil­ter). An ND fil­ter is the “sun­glass­es” for your cam­era.

On a bright sun­ny day, you can open the aper­ture to the max­i­mum to get a blur­ry back­ground and high­light the sub­ject, but in order not to over­ex­pose the pic­ture, you need an ND fil­ter. So you get expres­sive pho­tos of the first spring flow­ers or oth­er inhab­i­tants of the for­est.

With the help of a blurred back­ground, you can effec­tive­ly high­light the object. Pho­to (crop): Vale­ria Bolt­ne­va / pexels.com

ND fil­ters help cre­ate high-qual­i­ty pho­tos when shoot­ing at slow shut­ter speeds. By increas­ing the shut­ter speed, you run the risk of over­ex­pos­ing your pho­to. An ND fil­ter reduces the light out­put.

Why should a pho­tog­ra­ph­er increase expo­sure in spring, you ask? With slow shut­ter speeds, you can get the water and cloud smooth­ing effects that land­scape painters love.

The effect of “smooth­ing” water. Pho­to: www.pitenin.com

For video­g­ra­phers, an ND fil­ter is a must for shoot­ing on a bright sun­ny day. You will set the shut­ter speed accord­ing to the frame rate to get nat­ur­al motion blur. In order for the back­ground to go into a pleas­ant bokeh with­out over­ex­po­sure, you need to use an ND fil­ter.

Polarizing filter

Spring gives us blue skies, and to deep­en its hues, a polar­iz­ing fil­ter is used. But it’s not just good for that.

And this is how you can get rid of glare and reflec­tions on the water and shoot the stones. Pho­to: Anton Agarkov / nikonofficial.livejournal.com

Polar­iz­ing fil­ters reduce reflec­tions and glare from shiny sur­faces. Land­scape pho­tog­ra­phers use them to cap­ture the trans­par­ent expanse of lakes and rivers. Antiglare has an inter­est­ing side effect. It makes col­ors more sat­u­rat­ed, espe­cial­ly notice­able on green­ery.

Results

A shal­low depth of field can make almost any frame inter­est­ing. Pho­to: Abby Chung / pexels.com

So, in order to pre­pare for the spring shoot­ing and the first field trips, we need a few acces­sories.

First, you need the right lens. You can get by with a stan­dard zoom, but for more spe­cial­ized tasks you need spe­cial lens­es. For close-ups of flow­ers and oth­er plants, a macro lens is best. For shoot­ing ani­mals and birds — a tele­pho­to lens. Por­traits are always good with fast fix­es.

Sec­ond, you need a tri­pod. The most ver­sa­tile option would be a full size but not very heavy trav­el tri­pod. If you don’t want to take a full-size tri­pod with you, you can get by with a mini tri­pod with flex­i­ble legs.

Third­ly, for shoot­ing out­doors, you will need fil­ters: an ND fil­ter for increas­ing shut­ter speed and shoot­ing at an open aper­ture on a sun­ny day, as well as a polar­iz­ing fil­ter for more sat­u­rat­ed col­ors.

Sun­ny days are just around the cor­ner! Dare!