National Park Photography

I enjoy the national parks in this country.  There is a lot of photograph in each park because they have beautiful and unique scenery.  I find that the best time to be out there is just after sunrise and just before sunset.  Both times give different lighting on the landscape and scenery.  The best way to really see the parks is on hiking trails because I can get to much better scenery and formations.  I have also found that sunsets are great time of day to be in the park.

What I do

When planning photography at a national park for the day most of the time it will be early in the day or late afternoon.   If I am new to the park, I get more information at the visitor center.  The angle of the sunlight and warmer colors help with the lighting overall.  Even though holding the camera and shooting is easy to do with deserts, I almost always use a tripod.  This lets me take my time in planning a composition of what I am after.   

I usually use my full frame camera with the Canon 24-70 F/2.8 lens.   However, there are times when my Canon 11-24mm lens or the Canon 100-400 telephoto can in handy on some of the scenery.   Most of the time I am using a tripod but do not use the flash system, unless there is lighting, I need somewhere in the composition.   I spend time looking at the composition and how it is framed.   There are a lot of people in the parks that get in the way of the photograph, but many times they can be removed in post processing.