The basic photographic equipment for nature photography during your hike or a simple walk in nature can vary depending on your preferences, your needs or your artistic interests. There are some basic elements you can acquire to make nature photography an enjoyable process! ( ...note that you don't need to have those huge telephoto lenses or super wide-angle lenses with special effects in your angle of view.... ).
DSLR or Mirrorless . Choose between 21MP to 24MP so you can print it at a large dimension (experience the printing process how beautiful dimension it will give your landscape image compared to when you see it in digital form) but also be able to crop (cropping) part of the photo and still have a relatively good dimension.
Compact: Of course and a compact camera with the right built-in lens (see below on lenses) you can get amazing results. It's worth mentioning that a compact camera compared to a Dslr or Mirrorless is lighter, takes up less space in your bag, you can easily keep it in your pocket during your nature hike so you can take it out and use it immediately!
Lenses.
Wide angle lens (18-55mm): yes this basic lens included in many budget dslr or Mirrorless versions does a great job and will help you experiment and capture beautiful moments. Many of the nature photos I have on the site come from such a lens!
Lens 55 - 200mm. With this lens you can zoom in on subjects that are far enough away from your location without having to get closer. Especially in cases where the landscape you want to photograph is hard to reach and also if you want to photograph a bird or anything you get close to will fly away.
Tripod
Choose a relatively lightweight tripod with a quick release so you can quickly remove or mount your camera on it. Avoid the very economical ones because they are not stable as a result your subjects may come out blurry.
Battery
It is a good idea to have an extra battery with you especially if you are taking a lot of shots or when it is cold this runs out quickly.
But I hear you say.... "Why not use the mobile phone instead of all the above? "
Your concern is reasonable, but I quote the following:
The visualization of a landscape (and not only) with the above cameras is completely different from that of a mobile phone. The photos have depth and depict the landscapes as we actually see them.
With the mobile phone unfortunately this is not the case, the sense of depth is lost and there is a lot of distortion.
- With cameras as opposed to mobile phones, Megapixels work! Yes that sounds right. With the above cameras zooming in on landscape photography or cropping the landscape does not easily lose its detail unlike mobile phones which is not easily achieved.
- With the cameras having a little experience you can achieve amazing shots and moments which is impossible with mobile phones.
- Finally my personal always opinion, mobile phones actually screenshot the image we see in front of us with different megapixel management than dslr or mirrorless. But they are a great tool to capture our everyday moments and share them on social media.
In the future I will prepare more nature photography articles with dslr or mirrorless but also share techniques for better photography.
Have proper food with you (water, juice bars etc) so that you are in good physical condition and enjoy the joy of creativity.
Either way the conclusions are yours and happy creative hiking!