Ten Bonus Vacation Photo Tips

By Marianne Schwab | Best Travel Deals Tips Blog

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Vacation photos are the best souvenir of any trip. We live in an exciting time of digital photography and gone are the days when you have to wait to get back from your vacation to get film developed and then sadly discover that your travel photos are not what you expected. Your vacation memories were not recorded on film as you remembered the photo in your mind.

If you've already checked out the basic vacation photos tips on this website, I've put together an additional list of ten bonus vacation photo tips. Practice all of these photography tips so that your travel photos (as well as your travel memories) will last a lifetime.

1. Use the Latest model Canon Powershot, DSLR, or iPhone. I've recently upgraded to the Cannon Rebel DSLR but find that iPhone takes amazing photos when I'm on the go and it's less cumbersome.

2. Always keep your digital camera in a protective case & keep the wrist band on the camera secured around your wrist when taking photos. I also have an Otter case for my iPhone (along with wide angle lenses that were just $10 on Amazon.)

3. Put your name or address on you camera with a cell phone number & email address. If you accidentally leave your camera behind, hopefully a good Samaritan will make an effort to return it to you if they know how to reach you.

4. Always make every effort to take the best picture while you're on location on vacation, but do remember, you can "fix" some things with photo edit programs later including cropping your shot and even erasing items from the photo.

5. Be creative with your camera angles. I like an occasional dutch angle (like my photo of the nuns at the Vatican) and extreme angles (like the one with the In-N-Out Burger sign). Also, compose the shot so that you're looking down a street with the curve in the street as part of angle in the shot.

6. When you're shooting vacation videos, think story telling. Pick up establishing shots of key places you're visiting to use as b-roll and don't be afraid to shoot a little additional video for b-roll, too.

7. Video Editing Programs for your computer are fairly inexpensive. Microsoft Movie Maker is free on most versions of Windows but it doesn't have a lot of power. Sony Vegas is good for PCs and Final Cut Express is good for Mac Users.

8. Organize your photos and videos into files on your computer and get back-up external storage drive in case your computer gets a virus or photos are accidentally erased. I can't believe how many times my computer savvy brother, Mike, has lost irreplaceable photos (including his honeymoon in Spain) because he didn't back them up.

9. Don't forget to print your vacation photos. In the digital age, so many of us (including me) only have digital copies of our memories. With technology changing rapidly, make sure you make a hard copy record (i.e. photo album) of your vacation. If you anything happens to your camera or memory stick/disc (and you're not backed up electronically), your irreplaceable photos are gone forever.

10. There are a lot of inexpensive photo printing options. After you get your photos printed, make creating your photo albums easy to do as a family project and get the kids involved in putting vacation photo albums together. Whenever I have my family out to visit me, we go to Target on the last night they're in town and I print the photos of our California vacation. Before we go to bed, my nieces and nephews have put their photo album together so that when they arrive home the next day, they can share their trip through photos as soon as they step off the plane.

Finally, when you get back from your trip, here are some great ways to show off your vacation photos from writer, John Dow.

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