Picture perfect garden photography with your smartphone
Smartphones are excellent choices for garden photographers. Here are tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your smartphone camera for woodland and wildlife photography and suggestions for accessories that help you take better pictures with your favourite smartphone.
Tips and tricks to get the most out of your smartphone camera
They say the best camera is the one in your hand, and let’s face it, these days the camera in your hand is almost always a smartphone.
Not only are the cameras in today’s smartphones excellent, but the ease of sharing your garden photographs from the smartphone directly to social media or email is just too simple in comparison to the effort needed to share photos from digital cameras.
With that in mind, this post is going to focus on using a smartphone to photograph your garden.
In other posts, I’ll explore the benefits of using 35mm digital cameras and high-end point and shoot cameras, both of which offer more control, quality and accessories to tackle garden and wildlife photography.
Photo accessories add versatility to smartphones
Accessories, however, are not restricted to 35mm digital cameras.
There are some great accessories available for smartphones that will help expand your creative vision and enable you to capture images you would never have been able to capture with just your phone. More on those later.
In addition, many of the free editing programs that are available for smartphones are outstanding and can lift your garden photography to new heights.
Taken with an smartphone and edited in Lightroom to saturate the colours.
The image of the Sun’s rays streaming through the trees in the early morning (above) was taken with my iPhone following a heavy overnight rain.
I took several photos, but when I looked at them closely, I realized the best photo was an image within an image. Even with a heavy crop and some editing in a Lightroom phone app, the image held together surprisingly well.
Again, it shows what you can do with a smartphone camera, good lighting and a little knowledge about basic photographic editing.
The early morning light filters through the woodland garden and allowed me to capture a fleeting moment with my iphone camera.
One of the features that set smartphones apart from traditional cameras is the AI (artificial intelligence) now incorporated into most smartphones. This AI makes getting the proper exposure and focus for most images almost foolproof.
Although the latest smartphones are excellent and getting better every year, they’re not perfect.
Not unlike regular digital cameras, they can be easily fooled by extreme lighting conditions.
The resulting photographs will likely either be overexposed or underexposed.
By pinching the smartphone and enlarging the image, it’s possible to get good closeups or macro images of flowers like this native lady slipper. Some newer phones even have special macro lenses built into the phones.
Higher-end cameras that shoot RAW files or produce larger file sizes can withstand heavy editing without digitally “falling apart.” The smartphone digital file, however, is relatively small and severely editing the photograph can make the image unusable for all but basic sharing on social media.
The trick, especially with a smartphone, is to get the proper exposure from the beginning. Getting the best exposure often requires adjusting the camera settings to create an over- or underexposed image.
Our front Japanese-inspired garden taken with a smartphone.
Tricks to get the most from your smartphone camera
I am currently using an iphone 8 so everything I’ll write here will pertain to that phone. Other makes and models, however, offer similar features.
If you have never overridden the camera in your smartphone, or didn’t even know you could, you might be surprised what you can do with the phone’s camera settings.
For starters, if you are focusing in close on a particular flower in your garden, you can ensure it is in focus by touching the camera screen where the flower is located. This is especially helpful if you are trying for a closeup image of the flower. A yellow square will then overlap the area you touched on the screen. That cameraphone will then focus on that specific area and adjust exposure.
The closer you get to the main subject, whether it is a flower or a fall leaf, the more important it is to use the macro feature on the phone.
Once you touch the screen and the yellow square appears over the flower, you will notice that there is a sun icon with a slider line above and below it. This control allows you to change the exposure of the image. By sliding the sun image up, you brighten the image. By sliding it down you underexpose or darken the image.
The results can be dramatic.
The feature is particularly useful if you are shooting into the sun.
The amount of light coming into the camera will tell it to darken the image, but if you like the airy “high-key effect” than you can use the slider (moving it up) to keep the image bright.
If you are photographing a sunset, you may want to use the slider to darken the image and saturate the colours in the sunset. To darken the image, you would move the slider down.
I’m noticing dark, moody images have become more popular on instagram to create a more “theatrical” look.
But don’t underestimate the beauty of “high-key images.” They can be a nice effect, especially with light-coloured, delicate flowers. To bring the whiteness or brightness back to your flower images, touch the sun and slowly bring your finger up the screen. Notice the whole image getting brighter.
I was recently trying to capture an image of our flowering dogwood flowers that were back lit by the sun. The image the smartphone gave me underexposed the flower's dramatically, but by using the above technique I was able to maintain the delicate, ethereal effect I wanted in the image.
On another day, my pink supertunias were highlighted by a sunbeam that just lit them up beautifully against our grey shed which was in total shade. The smartphone read the scene and overexposed the flowers. Only by dramatically underexposing the scene was I able to recreate the pink supertunias standing out so boldly against the grey shed.
Built-in motordrive in Smartphones
One last technique to pass along that you may not know about.
Imagine you are sitting in your favourite chair in the garden checking out your instagram when a pileated woodpecker lands on a nearby branch. You raise the phone and grab a quick shot. It doesn’t move, so you grab another shot and it’s gone. You get two shots but neither is very good. In both cases the woodpecker turned its head just as you took the picture.
Here’s the tip many don’t know about: Your smartphone has a motor drive built into it. While you got two shots in the short time the woodpecker was on the branch, by holding your finger on the button you may well have got 10-20-30 shots to choose from instead.
At least one of those shots will be the perfect shot.
Grab your smartphone and give it a try.
Use your smartphones’ built-in zoom
In addition to the above technique, I’m guessing most people know about the two-finger zoom feature on smartphones that allow you to zoom in digitally on your subject.
Quality certainly suffers when you use this feature and remember to hold the camera steady when you take the shot, but the zoom feature allows you to get closer to the bird in the tree or the fawn in the back of the garden.
Don’t expect to get the same results you would with a 600mm F4 lens, but zooming in closer can make a big difference in garden photography where birds, insects and mammals are often easier to get close to.
Accessory lenses add even more versatility
Another way to add more versatility to your smartphone lens is with smartphone lens accessories.
There are a host of clip-on lenses that turn your smartphone lens into a fisheye lens, macro lens or telephoto lens. Often they are available in a package incorporating several lenses.
Checkout smartphone accessories available at Amazon, here.
The prices vary depending on the package and the quality of lenses. If you use your smartphone as your primary camera, these lenses are certainly worth considering.
Some lens packaged even include a circular polarizer, which is probably the single most important filter a garden photographer will need. The polarizer, not unlike polarized sunglasses, cuts through glare and reflection from leaves and other reflective surfaces including water but not steel.
A careful search on Amazon shows there are many lens/filters packages that include polarizers as well as star, graduated sky filters and neutral density filters. It is probably best to focus on a high quality circular polarizing filter rather than any other type of filter.
Tripod accessories for smartphones
The accessories seem endless on Amazon. Tripods and tripod adapters are also numerous. And if you find yourself using a tripod regularly, which is a good idea, you can get a bluetooth shutter release so you can take the picture without touching the phone and adding shake to the image.
An alternative is to just set a 5-10 second timer on your phone as a hands-off alternative.
Photographing your Woodland garden has never been easier.
A cup of coffee in one hand, the smartphone in the other and a walk around the garden in the early morning is sure to reveal some beautiful images.
A glass of wine in one hand, the smartphone in the other and an early evening stroll through the garden is sure to reveal even more outstanding images.
In your own garden, it’s particularly convenient to take advantage of these ideal times to take outstanding images. It doesn’t always need to be images of flowers.
When the sun is low in the sky and the wind has died down the garden becomes a magical place and the light takes on a new warmth that makes for the best photographic opportunities.
Don’t let these times go to waste.
This page contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of them, I will receive a commission (at no additional cost to you) I try to only endorse products I have either used, have complete confidence in, or have experience with the manufacturer.
Garden photography: How to use props to photograph backyard birds
Capturing a little peace in the garden isn’t always about flower power. Try adding photographic props for birds to perch on to add a little whimsy to both your garden and your photographs. A peace sign is a “cool” prop that birds flock to like beatniks as free pot party.
Using garden props for backyard bird photography is a great way to add a little fun and whimsy to your garden photography and with the right props, the results might just “blow your mind.”
Cool peace sign prop for backyard bird photos
Flower power takes a back seat in this garden photography project.
All summer our focus has been on capturing the beauty of garden flowers, but that changes as fall approaches and we begin to focus more on birds and other areas of garden photography.
Fall is the perfect time to add a little fun to our photographic projects and using garden statuary, tools and even props can result in many memorable backyard bird images. While capturing a backyard bird in its natural environment is usually our ultimate goal, no one says we can’t have a little fun and create a backyard photo studio that includes using props much like a professional photographer would use to capture images of children, families and even our pets.
This wanna-be-hippie came up with an idea to combine a love of all things 1960s with a passion for birds, photography and gardening.
So what could be better than a metal peace sign – the “coolest” bird perch ever.
Even the birds are groovin’ it.
“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there would be peace.”
The peace sign is all part of my search for fun landing spots to photograph backyard birds. By placing props around the garden and near bird feeders, there is no end to the fun photographs available to us. Great bird photographs don’t have to reflect pure nature in our gardens.
If I could have only one lens for wildlife and birds in the garden, it would be my F* 300mm F4.5. Check out my full story on the lens by clicking the link.
Some of the best photographs I’ve seen celebrate the garden experience and welcome our forest friends to enjoy the garden – and its man-made ornaments – along with us.
By moving in close the peace sign is still recognizable but the focus changes to the bird rather than the prop. A soft backyground adds to te simplicity of the image.
So it’s really a small step from photographing them on our existing garden tools, ornaments and patio accoutrements, to setting up fun props to catch them in entertaining poses.
“No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.”
The “Peace sign” just seemed too perfect to pass up.
A quick search on Amazon brought up the coolest “Peace sign” – the perfect landing spot for backyard birds waiting for their turn at the bird feeder.
A couple days later and my Peace sign arrived all packed up and ready to become the latest perch for our backyard birds. After wrapping some copper wire around the perch to attach to the bird feeder pole, all that was left to do was to hang it and wait a few days so the birds can get acquainted to their cool new perch.
They took to it like beatniks would to free pot at a poetry reading party.
The peace sign perch is actually just one of many sprinkled throughout the garden.
This image was taken with a Fujifilm X10 equipped with a 28-112mm lens and shows what can be accomplished with a little planning. It helps to gain the trust of the wildlife in your garden. For more on the Fujifilm X10, go to my complete review here.
Setting up perches for an outdoor studio
It helps to keep the perches close to where you normally relax with your coffee and camera.
Eventually, one of our garden critters, whether it’s a backyard bird, chipmunk or friendly red squirrel, will explore the man-made garden perch. By keeping an eye on the spot, and watching how the light plays on the perch, it’s easy to capture it in the best light.
By hiding a handful of sunflower seeds on or near the perch, you can encourage the backyard models to the area much easier.
Most animals in our backyards like to get up high to keep an eye out for potential predators. I mounted this native bee and butterfly house on a pole and it didn’t take long for our local red squirrels to claim it as a lookout.
The simple grey background of the backyard shed helps the subject stand out and certainly does not hide the fact that the image was taken in a backyard. I was lucky enough to be in a photographic blind working the nearby feeder, when I noticed the squirrel watching me from the bee house. Although the Tragopan blind made getting the shot a little easier, these guys are friendly enough to photograph without a blind.
Focus on hummingbirds: Swinging in style
One of my favourite photography props is our elegant little hummingbird perch, a favourite spot for the local hummers to hang out.
I mount it just a few inches above a feeder where they like to perch and defend their food source.
Knowing that morning light creates a nice backlit situation made catching this rim light on the hummingbird as simple as setting up the tripod over several mornings until the bird landed in the perfect spot with just the right light.
If you are looking to upgrade your photography, consider checking out KEH Camera Exchange for excellent deals in used camera equipment from the latest camera bodies to a wide assortment of lenses.
This Cardinal gives our garden bench the perfect pop of colour. There’s no need to move in close in this case, better to show the bird in its environment.
The garden bench makes the perfect prop
A garden bench is another excellent perch for backyard birds. Waiting for the male cardinal to get into the perfect spot took some patience but the pop of colour on the aged wooden bench makes for a classic garden photograph.
I decided it was best to stay back and not move in too close in this instance. Photographers often try to move in too close to birds, when a more environmental portrait actually works better.
In the image below, a closer approach seemed appropriate to catch the Chipmunk in the lovely evening light on the edge of the bench. The close approach was, at least in part, thanks to working from within my Tragopan Photographic blind. (For more on using the blind for backyard photography, check out my full report here.)
Goldfinch on windmill.
Catching the critical moment
It pays to have your camera by your side at all times in the garden. This little goldfinch was having a terrific time on the garden windmill. I was lucky enough to capture the image just when it popped its head out to have a look around.
Seconds later it was off to explore another part of the garden.
Chipmunk takes a quick break on garden ornament.
We’re are blessed in our yard with an abundance of curious chipmunks who never fail to amuse. This little guy was caught eating his lunch while I enjoyed a glass of wine on the nearby patio.
Garden photography: Build a portable DIY reflection pond in three simple steps
How to create a reflection pond in three simple steps. It begins with purchasing a rubberized boot tray. Then add some natural materials such as moss, river rock, pea gravel, pine needles and, in the fall, colourful leaves. The last step, add a little water and you are ready to start capturing professional looking reflection images of birds and mammals.
Create professional looking wildlife photographs
Ever wonder how photographers get those beautiful reflection shots of birds or animals?
It should come as no secret that many of those images are made with a well thought out reflection pond and a photographic blind.
In this post I am going to show you how to create a reflection pond in three simple steps and about ten minutes of your time.
I've always admired the incredible image of a lion drinking by the water hole in the evening – Its pink tongue and focused stare perfectly reflected in the water.
Without the mirror-like reflection, the image is just another impressive safari shot.
Our woodland and wildlife gardens can’t compete with an African watering hole, but that doesn’t mean we can’t create exciting reflection images in our own backyards. I know the red squirrel in the picture above isn’t quite a lion, but with a little work we can all imagine the possibilities.
Many of us have seen elaborate reflection ponds created to photograph birds and mammals. Some reflection ponds in Europe are so popular that photographers are willing to pay to use them to obtain outstanding photographic images of birds and mammals.
But here’s an epic hack of a readily available commercial product that makes creating a reflection pond as simple as possible and for under $50 Canadian. It’s so simple that, provided you have a few materials at hand, building it should take less than ten minutes.
(If saving money is your thing, check out my in-depth article on Building Your Garden on a Budget.)
This reflection of a red squirrel at the pond is made to look natural with the addition of moss, pine needles, river rock and submerged pea gravel. This DIY reflection pond is extremely simple and inexpensive to create.
A step by step visual illustration of the creation of the reflection pond made from a rubberized boot tray.
Three simple steps to creating a reflection pond
1) Purchase a black rubberized boot tray. Mine was purchased from Lee Valley Tools outlet here in Canada and place it on a small table.
2) Add a few large river rocks, a couple of handfulls of pea gravel, maybe a birch log and moss, pine needles etc to your taste.
3) Add a couple pitchers of water to fill the tray and voila.
The reflected image of the red squirrel is just one example of what can be done with this simple, backyard reflection pond.
A little planning goes a long way in the creation of memorable backyard bird and mammal images. With that in mind, I went to work creating an outdoor studio to provide the inspiration to create my own “lion image.”
It's not uncommon for photographers to set up a few branches near a feeder as perches to guide birds to the best photographic locations.
My plan was to take that a step farther with the creation of a small reflecting pond to entice birds during the winter, when a reliable water source is a priority.
It all started with with the purchase of a 32-inch by 16-inch by 1.25-inch deep black rubber boot tray. It’s the perfect ready-made base to use as a reflection pond.
A robin stops by the reflection pond to steal a drink.
This boot tray, in case you are not familiar with it, is no cheap plastic flimsy tray that will crack in the cold. It’s made from a virtually indestructible rubber compound that is also non-skid and heavy enough to stay put even in high winds.
Placed on a similarly rectangular patio table that sits about two feet high, it's at the perfect height to capture reflections of the birds and mammals from my Tragopan V6 photographic blind or, if I put it close to a window in my home, from the comfort of my home.
Once I had the boot tray, the next step was to simply add some pea gravel, a couple of medium-sized and larger river rocks, maybe some pine needles, moss and a birch branch to give the outdoor photo studio a more natural look from behind the camera lens.
These natural materials will form the backdrop for the images and can be changed or manipulated to create different looks from one season to another. In summer, for example, moss and small wildflowers could be added. In fall, fallen leaves, pinecones, even an acorn or two.
Once the natural materials are in place, add a few pitchers of water to fill the tray to the top. Once the water is added, ensure that the tray is level by placing small stones or pieces of wood under the table’s legs.
Now, you are ready to begin photographing. It's really as simple as that. The birds will need time to get comfortable with the reflection pond.
During warmer months, you could slip a small mirror into the water to get a perfect reflection, but I don’t find that necessary. The fact the boot tray is black, will result in good to excellent reflection qualities provided your camera is set at the right angle to the water. A little experimentation here will help you get the results you want.
For the winter, set it up outside a back door on your deck or near a full-length window, so you can capture images in the comfort of your home.
With the Tragopan photography blind placed 7-10 feet from the reflection pond, I am able to use a very basic, inexpensive lens to capture the images.
By creating these types of lures to bring birds and mammals in close to either a photographic blind or a window in your home, you are much more likely to get outstanding images without having to purchase expensive photographic lenses.
It's important to note that to get a proper reflection, the camera should be at the same level or just above the height of the reflection pond. Some trial and error is necessary to get the best results.
I'll admit that the rubber boot tray falls a little short. It’s not perfect. If it were a little larger it would capture more of the reflection of larger birds or mammals, but it works beautifully for smaller- and mid-sized birds and mammals.
The fact it is black not only helps to create the perfect reflection, it also absorbs the light and works as a natural solar heater during the colder months. It will not keep it ice free in the coldest months, but it will help warm the water on sunny days.
My cost for the entire setup was about $40 Cdn, which was the cost of the boot tray.
In addition to the rectangular reflection pond, I also created a similar, smaller round version using a plastic planter tray purchased from a local nursery for about $11. That smaller pond is deeper so it allows me to use an electric birdbath heater to keep the small “pond” from freezing over.
For the winter, I have put both reflection ponds side by side in an area of the garden near a full-length glass door which allows me to photograph the birds and animals all winter from inside my home.
(I have taken the reflection pond to new heights by combining it with a natural backyard food table. Click on the link for the complete story about building a DIY feeding table/reflection pond photo studio.)
Another image of the red squirrel getting a sip of water from the reflection pond.
Tragopan Photographic blind is ideal companion to reflection pond
A note on using the one-man Tragopan V6 blind with this project. Besides working so well to hide my movements inside the blind, the viewing holes are set at the perfect height to photograph the best reflections.
The reflection pond from inside the Tragopan V6 photographic blind.
In addition, both the blind and the reflection pond are extremely easy to move around the garden. By moving the blind around the garden, it’s possible to change backgrounds and even the reflections. For example, in the fall, move the reflection pond around the garden to capture the most intense fall colours. In the spring, do the same to capture spring flowering trees and shrubs.
I have used the blind extensively over the past several months and have grown to really appreciate the convenience of using it to capture images I would never have been able to get without it.
An added bonus to the blind is that as the weather turns cooler, the photo blind, that comes with a thermal lining built into it, will not only help cut the chilling winds and hold what little heat my body generates inside the blind.
The blind makes photographing during the cooler temperatures of late fall and early winter very comfortable for long periods of time.
Gardening on a budget links
Ten money-saving tips for the weekend gardener
DIY Bark Butter feeder for Woodpeckers
DIY reflection pond for photography
Click & Grow is ideal for Native Plants from seed