Go on a shooting spree

So, you’re planning a big trip in your RV. Months of preparation go past then finally, it's departure day.

Days, weeks, months of bliss - and then before you know it, you’re back home as if nothing ever happened. But there’s a way to prolong the fun when you record your journey with a camera as you go.

With some forward planning, the right equipment and a little luck, you can capture some astonishing images of your trip so you can relive the highlights for years to come.

So what makes a great photo?

We all aim to take good pictures. Images which have the power to transport us back to a place and time in the past to allow us to re-live a particular moment or memory.

A truly great image can do this not just for the people present during the photograph but for those who are seeing a scene for the first time.

Back in the days of film it was quite difficult to get truly great images from a camera for the average non-professional, but these days digital cameras have dramatically improved the odds.  While the majority of happy snappers are at odds to explain how to create a great image, we all recognise a great image instantly and with digital we can take a look. 

If we don’t feel we captured the moment effectively, we simply take another photo. Quite fantastic!

But sifting through hundreds of images to find half a dozen worth keeping is still pretty painful and there‘s nothing worse than discovering all of the images around a critical event are blurry, poorly framed or badly exposed.

Luckily, taking better photos on your big adventure is as easy as A, B and C.

The first thing to know is that high end cameras aren’t necessarily better.

There’s no question that high-end cameras have the potential to take superior images but mid to high-end cameras with swappable lenses and single-lens reflex (SLR) can be bulky and rather heavy.

Great images are often a matter of being in the right place, at the right time so it’s important you have a camera you can have with you at all times.

I take more pictures on my mobile phone than any other camera because it’s always with me but I also have a compact camera  which I like to keep with me when I travel which takes a vastly superior shot thanks to the larger sensor and lens. But because it’s still tiny, I can keep it in my pocket.

It also has a 30x zoom so even if I’m far from the action (think back row at Sea World) l can still zoom and get in amongst it.

But regardless of camera, you should always shoot at the highest possible quality.

When you shoot Jpeg, the camera captures your image based on the settings of the camera at that time and then discards this information to allow it to compresses your image to save disk space.

The problem with this approach is that even high-end cameras often fail to take the ideal exposure across the entire image.  The less compression, the more you can adjust an image without losing information.

When taking a ‘raw’ photo the camera doesn’t discard anything. The information captured by the image sensor of your camera stays in the picture so you can actually change the camera settings applied to your photo after it was taken.

A raw photo also allows different adjustments to be made on different sections of your photo so an entirely ordinary image can be re-processed to become quite exceptional.

The other advantage of even a cheap digital camera these days is that it will shoot decent video as well as images.

Shooting video snapshots with your images can add a dynamic element to your big trip image library and greatly enhance your enjoyment of these images in the future. When you do start to shoot video, even if you have no intention of ever editing your footage, mix your shot sizes to build a sequences of action and this will make your footage vastly more enjoyable to watch.

Create a video snapshot you can easily edit by building a simple sequence of shots with lots of angles and viewpoints (close up, distant, medium close up etc).

Start each snapshot nice and wide to help establish the scene. You want to show the action as well as the surroundings. Now start moving around - if possible, at least 45 degrees for each shot.

Doing this stops action from jumping and looking discontinuous whenever the shot changes. After a nice opening wide shot, get in close to the action to capture a big close up of what’s happening (hands, faces, feet etc). 

Keep switching between wide shots and close-up shots and your footage will be a breeze to edit into a 15 second snapshot -- perfect for sharing or something even longer.

But the real beauty of shooting something amazing is that you can then share it.
Bringing home an amazing sequence of stills and video after a big trip is a highly satisfying thing; only surpassed when you get to actually share those images with appreciative others.

Share on Facebook, build a profile on Instagram or upload a video to Youtube. Go ahead and share your less incriminating travel videos and still images and enrich the day of someone who has yet to get out there and experience something for themselves first hand.

Click here for an example of a video snapshot built from a sequence I shot on a family motorhome trip. Notice how the video adds depth and enhances the story behind any still images taken at the same time.