One of the great joys of photography is that it offers us an opportunity to capture endless moments of natural wonder all around us. It’s a delight to soak up this special privilege and share the beauty that we constantly find, also combined with ageless wisdom from some of our world’s great thought leaders. This is easy to do with tools such as Adobe Photoshop available, and so many websites that freely share profound quotes, like www.thinkexist.com and www.goodreads.com to name only two.

Light conditions and optimal camera settings are crucial to capturing exquisite nature images. The first thing to do is shoot during golden hour if possible, shortly after sunrise and shortly before sunset, and to bear in mind details such as your selected ISO, white balance and focal length. To illustrate, here are a few examples, with info on some of the settings used. It’s often helpful to underexpose by at least a third of a stop with outdoor photography, particularly in brighter light, but also worth testing this to check your results.

Nature Photography Settings

Dave zoomed in on this lovely water-lily in the Khwai river at the Okavango Delta, using matrix metering on our Nikon 200 – 400mm lens on the 400mm setting, at 1/2000 sec exposure, ISO 200 and with aperture priority at f/4,0.

This autumn avenue in Dullstroom begged me to photograph it, with our Nikon 70 – 200mm lens set to 70mm, aperture priority at f/22 to keep the full scene in focus, 1/60 sec exposure and ISO 200 with matrix metering.

Another magnificent sunset on the Masai Mara in Kenya . . . Dave seized the moment to shoot this at 400mm, 1/8000 sec, f/4.0 aperture priority and applying centre weight metering.

To view more images with thought-provoking quotes, have a look at our Natural Inspiration Facebook album. And here’s to your inspiration to play with your camera in the unsurpassed presence of nature!