Bloggers Gonna Blog: The Best Camera and Lens Advice for Travel Blogger Photos

Due to VERY popular demand, I wanted to write an update to our camera lens advice for those of you who are considering going on a trip in the new year and are wanting some real life advice from a blogger just like you! This post is all about getting those super pretty blogger travel photos and which camera lens combo you need to have to achieve the look. Now by all means, I am not a “professional photographer”, I didn’t go to art school nor do I have more than a year or so experience with a DSLR, but after spending two weeks in Italy with my dad and our trusty Nikon, I feel confident that I can help you decide on what camera to bring, what lenses you need and which to leave at home (sorry lenses!) and what setting will save your travel photos lives lol.

Ok, so first things first, I would highly recommend you read our previous post, BLOGGERS GONNA BLOG: BEST CAMERA AND LENS ADVICE FOR NEWBIE BLOGGERS , explaining why we went with the Nikon DSLR Nikon D5300 and why this may or may not work for you. Also this is a long post, so be patient, or just scroll to the section you are most interested in below!

Why I was wrong about the D5300 being “too much camera”

Now that your all caught up, let me tell you why I was wrong about what I said in the previous post about the Nikon D5300. When I wrote that post, we were about 7 months into blogging, shooting each other’s outfit posts and in general using the camera. I hadn’t yet really taken the camera on a trip yet and so after taking the camera with me to Italy, I discovered I was wrong to have doubted some of what seemed to be features that Melissa and I thought we would use but never were. The main differences between the D5300 and the next step down is the flip screen and wifi capability.

Take for instance the flip screen capability. Prior to the vacation, I hadn’t used that very much but when shooting on the vacation I found there were instances were I wanted to shoot above the crowds and used the flip screen to see the framing of the shot from my vantage point in the crowd. It surprising also came in handy when my dad was shooting something for me and I wanted to see how he was framing up the shot (micro-managing I know, I’m working on it lol).

Also, the wifi feature .. was amazing . Previously, Mel and I hadn’t really used the wifi feature much like I said in the previous post, because when at home in the U.S. because usually when we’re shooting we aren’t posting right there in the moment. We’re actually shooting for posts that we plan on sharing about two weeks later so the need for the wifi uploading and photo sharing just wasn’t something we need or used in daily normal activity. BUT, abroad, this came in SUPER HANDY. not only could I throw on the wifi and quickly share to my phone almost ANYWHERE, but then I could edit them using photoshop or vsco on my phone and  then upload them to latergram to share with Melissa and to post in the moment or later that day depending on the time difference. This was insanely convenient and made me really appreciate that we went with the D5300 instead of the step down in the Nikon family.

The only lens you should bring with you on vacation is….

Your zoom kit lens. Surprise! Now I’ll confess I asked a trusted photographer, Todd White (who’s the best y’all) before my trip for advice on which of our lenses he thought I should bring and he was adamant that if I only wanted to bring ONE lens, it should be the zoom kit lens. To give y’all a little reminder we have the 18mm-140mm zoom kit lens that came with our camera and later purchased the 50 mm f/1.4 to get those really pretty blurry fashion photos that all the bloggers and readers love. I was perplexed by this advice at first but was SO HAPPY that I did was Todd said and brought the zoom kit lens. Not only did I not want to mess with carrying around a big camera/lens bag with an extra lens but the idea of switching lenses in the middle of exploring with my dad seemed annoying and too much. Luckily I was able to get those beautiful landscape travel photos AND those super pretty blurry photos WITH THE SAME LENS, the zoom kit lens, that I had previously pooh-poohed in the earlier post!

surprisingly, yes, BOTH this super cool blurry and high focused detail photo and the landscape photo above were taken with THE SAME LENS, our Nikon 18mm-140mm zoom kit lens!

The tricky part, the setting you need to learn

You may be asking yourself, ok so if I can achieve this, then a) why do I need the other blurry fixed aperture lens that you insisted on in the earlier post and b) how do I do this then? Well, to address point a, I still HIGHLY suggest if you are a blogger in it for the long haul, to get a fixed aperture lens like the 50 mm f/1.4 or a similar lens, just as long as its fixed aperture. Reason being, the answer to point b is complicated, takes time, patience, practice and well LOTS of practice and determination. Your fixed aperture lens will still give you these super blurry photos, and will MAKE IT EASY. To accomplish this with your zoom kit lens, won’t be as easy but is definitely possible! Now with that said, if you are determined, patient with yourself and have the time, you CAN accomplish this. I mean after all this newbie blogger got the hang of it, (more or less) in two weeks in Italy. If I can do it you can too!

To get your zoom kit lens to give you blurry photos, you first need to flip your camera to the scariest setting ever… Manual . For a beginner like me, when I first did this I was like OhMyGodOopsTerribleMistakeGiveUpNow. But I realized I was in Italy, and this was the ONLY lens I brought and it was now or never if I wanted amazing travel photos. So first basic things you need to learn about shooting in the manual setting, is patience and light. Light is everything, and every time you zoom in and out, take a step forward or back, your light will change whether you know it or think so, it will trust me. So snap some photos, check and then adjust. Repeat a thousands times and be patient with yourself. It’s a learning process and will take lots of snap, check, adjust, snap, check, adjust and so forth and so forth. I can’t stress this pattern enough.

Manual settings debunked and simplified

I’m going to break down manual settings as I understand them and in the simplest ways possible. This is my disclaimer that I am in no way an expert, nor do I know very much at all, but I’ll share with you from MY EXPERIENCES, and well those got me some pretty nice shots like this one, and I think even if I’m no expert, for someone just starting out like me, I can definitely help by simplifying and making shooting in manual seem a little less scary!

Aperture

This is the tool that allows you to control what I like to call your blurry-ness or what other more proper people call your depth of field. It also is your secret light source. It is also called your ‘f-stop’. So with the zoom kit lens, you can set the aperture by flipping from manual to aperture and adjusting and then flipping right back to manual to shoot. The higher your f-stop the less blur and less light , the lower your f-stop the more blur and more light .

I love light, bright, airy photos so I like to keep my aperture very open. Sometimes this can backfire though when your home editing your photos because if you like an airy light Lightroom edit and your image is already very exposed it can look not right. So be careful not to go overboard with letting so much light in that you over expose and blow out your shot.  Here’s some examples below of what you can do to get blur on the go with out a fixed lens!

Shutter Speed

This is the easiest and fastest way to adjust how light or dark you image is when moving about between frames in a new city and also juggling trying to get the perfectly timed snap (I’m talking to every person who will walk in and out of your frames like you don’t exist at all as you try to get the perfect blogger travel snap lol). You can adjust this quickly  without having to stop shooting and look at the display screen which is the best part. Just use your thumb on the little turny dial thing (consult your camera’s manual for a more technical name) and viola! You can speed the shutter up , so the photo is snapped faster, thus allowing less time for light to get in OR you can slow the shutter down allowing more light to flood your image.

Here’s an example below:

ISO

This one can be kind of a tough one for me because it’s the missing puzzle piece between aperture and shutter speed. Since I didn’t come up with a quick way of adjusting my ISO on the go while walking around, I decided that it was much easier to find a happy medium ISO setting for the day than to be constantly adjusting. Now if your walking around and the lighting is very consistent, you won’t feel the need to touch it at all. The problem comes when you are constantly walking around through shots with lots of harsh direct sunlight and then you turn the corner and boom your engulfed in shadows. So my best advice is find a happy medium ISO setting and use your other tools that are much easier to adjust on the fly such as your aperture and shutter speed since you can adjust those much quicker! My general setting were as follows:

Lots of direct sunlight: 250-350 (because I like my aperture very open all the time lol but you could do even 100-200)

Overcast and shade: 400-500

Well, what did you think?

I warned you, it was going to be a long one. Quite frankly, I was very nervous writing this post as it’s hard to explain something with so many moving parts when your not in person. I spent SO MUCH TIME writing this, and choosing photos and trying to make sure it was straight forward as possible (I have the tendency to be so detailed it’s like um ok, enough, I can’t anymore with you lol).  I also wanted to take my time writing this as we’ve been so busy preparing and relaunching Seek Wander Share as our new ethically sourced shop with handmade creations for the modern girl! This post is definitely a follow up from our first BLOGGERS GONNA BLOG: BEST CAMERA AND LENS ADVICE FOR NEWBIE BLOGGERS post which has been our most commented and read post ever. I hope that it’s just as helpful, if not more and that you know if you have any questions, thoughts or anything you might want to ask, leave a comment below and we’ll do our best to help!

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