If you’ve ever wondered how to get the best camping pictures and video at the campsite to impress your friends and family, we’ve collected our favourite tips together ready for next camping season.
In one of our earlier articles we gave a simple guide to taking great camping photographs. Due to its popularity we’ve put together more recommendations to help your photography and videography stand out above the rest. So whether you’re happy camper or a camping business, read on to become the next David Bailey!
Getting great photos needn’t cost the earth!
Would it shock you if you learnt that many of the pictures on Inspired Camping are taken with an iPhone? Well it’s true. Integrated cameras today are far beyond what they used to be. This is why one of the most famous editorial photographers Dan Chung, was commissioned to take Olympic pictures during the 2012 games using only his iPhone and producing some unforgettable images.
Buying a great photography app will also help to turn your pictures into works of art and motivate you to get out there with your camera even more. The best thing is they are very affordable and often free so its possible to own more than one. These are relevant for iPhones and some for Android. For more tips about Android see the comments section below.
Getting Started
One of the easiest apps to use, CameraBag dramatically enhance your photos using classic camera and film simulations. It focuses on emulating styles and processes from some of the most interesting cameras of the past to enhance the mood of an image, and the results are stunning. If we were only able to recommend one app to get the best camping pictures then CameraBag (for us) would be the one.
Through this app you can enhance, transform, and share photos really easily. It can help you make any photograph extraordinary with tools that allow you to enhance, transform, and share photos with ease using some great features, such as auto correct, enhancing with filters like drama, vintage, grunge and tilt-shift, selective adjustment and adding borders.
With this app you can use variety of one-touch effects, or drag your finger across the screen to crop, rotate, or adjust color to improve your photos. It’s also possible to add artistic filters like Soft Focus or Sketch, while keeping a copy of your original file so you can undo and redo changes with ease.
We love Halftone as it turns your photos into unique, vintage comics. It’s super easy to use and you can add paper styles, captions, speech balloons, graphic stamps, and fonts (including built-in comic fonts). Your final image can be sent via e-mail, uploaded directly to Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr, shared with apps like Instagram, Camera+, and Color Splash, printed, and even sent as a real, physical postcard through the mail! All that for just a few pence!
With over 170+ photo effects, 40+ frames, effects and retina support this is an artistic and easy to use photo app. It gives an intuitive user experience and allows you to share what you produce throughout all your social networks. But the most impressive part of this app is its ability to integrate with the professional photography software; Aperture, Lightroom, iPhoto and PhotoShop.
This app allows you to add new colours to your images, creating all kinds of special dramatic effects. There are also monochrome backgrounds, handy editing tools and a customisable painting brush. The added extras however, are the ability to import from Facebook and to export to all social media networks such as Instagram and Twitter, etc .
This app allows you to edit your photos in minutes. You can even do things such as removing unwanted objects from your pictures, fixing blemished skin and restoring damaged pictures. It is this and the 20 easy to learn photo editing tools that make it an inexpensive alternative to Photoshop.
This is one of the most popular photography apps for a reason. It’s simple to use and gives you loads of features completely free. Lets face it… 80 million users can’t be wrong…!
This app is for lovers of retro styles. It adds authentic effects and soundtracks to your video and many other tracks to help you make a one of a kind vintage movie.
The express mode lets you do what you want in minutes, while the Pro mode gives you more editing tools to really express yourself. But its the effects that really make this app stand above the rest, with disco, grooving, hippie fair, sepia, newborn, classic, and black and white options at your finger tips.
With this app you can splice together photos and videos in an amazingly simple way. It’s also possible to add music tracks from your iPod library, sound effects, transitions, borders, effects, trim video and audio, narrate with your own voice, and much more. Perfect if you want to share some of your campsite videos with your online audience.
Recommended Gear
- If you are going to take your precious gadgets away I would definitely recommend investing in an Otterbox Defender or Griffin Survivor.
- The Power Monkey range is a good way to keep your mobile device powered up on the road too. There are many options including a portable solar solution.
- For digital memory the Sandisk Extreme Pro cards are just about the best.
- The Olympus Tough compact digital camera range makes most other cameras look like dinosaurs. They are waterproof and shockproof and perfect for life under the stars… especially if you have kids.
- Look for film cameras on ebay. You can pick up a really nice old manual SLR with a couple of lenses for less than fifty quid. Chuck a few rolls of film through that baby and you have yourself some retro prints in an envelope heaven.
- For bags we recommend the Think Tank range at Snapper Stuff, all tried and tested by us.
- Finally, if you are thinking of doing some videography then the HD Hero is just about the best you can get. It’s easy to use, light and tough, and you don’t have to be a professional to get some amazing memories to share on YouTube.
Now You’ve Created Your Masterpiece Share It!
It’s never been easier to share your media amongst your family, friends, colleagues, customers, etc. and we all love using accounts on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest to do so. However, if you are running a camping business it’s now possible to share your work using business accounts on most of them, including the now business-focussed Pinterest, which will help to boost your online reach and audience. For more tips on how to do this all you need to do is visit Hubspot to get your ultimate guide for free.
Inspired Camping
Picture Credits: Vanlife and Mark Beresford
