Travel Photography How To

Exploring Light is a new monthly Shutterbug column featuring tips, tricks, and photo advice from professional photographers in Canon's Explorers of Light education program. This month's column is by Bruce Dorn on how to shoot better travel photos.

It's not what most photographers would consider essential glass, but in mid-2017, when I heard it was available, I knew the 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5 fisheye Nikkor was a lens I'd like a lot. What I didn't realize was how much "a lot" was going to be. It turned out that I liked to have it with me whenever I was photographing.

We're always looking for quick tricks to make us better photographers. What we like about photographer and educator Mark Hemmings' photo tutorials is that he offers simple tips on how to shoot better photos and then expands on them so you're learning several techniques at once.

For the past 30 years, my great passion has been to travel to the world’s most remote and beautiful places on earth telling stories with my camera. I spend weeks at a time immersing myself into the landscapes and with the people who inhabit these lands.

The story here is not that you should carry a wide-angle lens—or even better, several of them. I carry two or three wide-angle lenses routinely, and like me, I'm sure you realize their value and their importance. This lens how-to story is about ideas for how you can use them to maximize their creative potential and their stunning effect.

If you've never tried the exposure bracketing function on your camera, you need to bust it out right away because it can be a "lifesaver," according to photographer Pierre T. Lambert. This is particularly true, he says, when you're shooting scenes of high contrast, such as sunsets or in direct sunlight.

Travel photographer Pierre T. Lambert is currently in French Polynesia and during his trip he booked himself on 4x4 off-roading tour with a group of tourists. Seems like it would be difficult to shoot attractive travel photos when you're on a crowded touristy tour, right? Not so!