5 tips for capturing the beauty of nature on your mobile

South Australia’s stunning national parks are packed full of unique landscapes and home to a diverse range of flora and fauna.

From the rugged coastline of Flinders Chase- Kangaroo Island to the sprawling oasis of Munga-Thirri -Simpson Desert and everywhere beyond and in between, exploring our national parks and capturing these moments with photography has become that much easier with the evolution of the mobile phone.

We chatted to Ben Woods, Field Officer for Flows for the Future and all round photography superstar, who gave us these 5 tips will help you make the most of your mobile photography experience.

1 – Experiment with your phone features

Take some time to familiarise yourself with the features and tools available on your phone. You can almost guarantee that there is a tutorial available for anything you want to know specifically for your brand and model. Your smartphone is packed with features that are designed to enhance your photography souse different settings to see what works best for you in various environments.

HDR mode – High Dynamic Range (HDR) mode will capture more details in both the shadows and highlights, especially in high contrast scenes like Belair National Park.

Panorama mode – Large landscapes need to be shown big. This mode is perfect for capturing the vast landscapes of Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park

Filters and effects – Try different filters and effects to add mood to your images. Perhaps a black-and-white conversion to highlight the texture of some tree bark?

2 – Composition

Good composition creates an engaging and balanced photo. It’s one of the reasons your eyes are drawn to one image over another. Here are just two techniques to remember when capturing our national parks' diverse scenery.

Rule of thirds – This divides your screen into thirds. Enable the grid feature on your phone and place your subject along the grid lines or at their intersections. This tip can make your photos more dynamic and visually appealing.

Leading lines – Natural lines like paths, creeks, and trees guide the viewer's eye through your photo and toward the main subject. Our national parks are a treasure trove of leading lines.

Perspective – Don’t be afraid to get down low, this emphasises the foreground well and the different viewpoint draws the viewers eyes.

3 – Tap for focus and shoot for highlights

Your smartphone does a pretty good job at judging light and what to focus on, but it’s still a bit of a lucky dip. When lining up the perfect shot, tap the screen to focus on your subject or point of interest, this ensures that everything is in focus that should be. This is not really an issue for a sweeping landscape but can be if you have a close point of interest in the foreground.

If you get proficient at changing the exposure for your camera this can be a very useful tool. Reducing the exposure to bring the detail back in the sky, then using an editing app to brighten the shadows will result in a much more balanced image.

4 - Crop and edit, avoid zoom

Editing your images on your smartphone will save you time compared to downloading, storing, and editing on a computer.

There are many apps that are great for editing your smart phone images and the number one recommended function is cropping. Avoid zooming in when you’re taking your image, it destroys the image quality. Instead, use an app to crop your image in post-production.

Enhancing an image using an editing app is perfectly fine, you can show your creative flair with edits, but you can get a bit carried away. Our tip is to keep nature looking natural.

5 – Share with us

We love seeing our wonderful parks and reserves through your eyes, and love seeing images from our visitor’s latest adventures. What park will you visit next?

Be sure to tag us @nationalparkssa and use #nationalparkssa and don’t forget to follow us for more amazing photo inspiration from within our wonderful national parks.