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With a camera in hand, you can immortalise a moment forever. Whether it's the colour pop of a newly bloomed flower, a family of ducklings trailing their parents in a perfect line or even a beloved family pet basking in the sun, an image of springtime can be irresistible.
We've shared some of our top tips to help you create the perfect shot to share on Facebook or Instagram, or even blow up to showcase on your living room wall.
If you're an uncertain or novice photographer, we've got your back - some of this advice covers the fundamentals that can make you a more confident photographer, even if you don't want top of the range equipment.
To take great shots you'll need a great camera - our digital camera reviews will help you find a winner, whether you're looking for a pop-in-the-pocket compact or a high-end mirrorless or DSLR.
You don't necessarily need a high-end mirrorless or DSLR camera to capture a stunning nature shot. Social media is full of beautiful wildlife photos snapped on a smartphone, and our lab testing has found budget cameras that take crisp shots too.
That said, the quality of your camera becomes more important when you try to take more technical shots and you need to make use of advanced settings or specialist lenses.
For example, if you want to capture a bird whizzing by or your dog racing for a ball, you'll need a camera that has the performance features capable of taking a blur-free image.
We've highlighted a selection of cameras with features that could make them a good bet for outdoor photography at the end of this article.
Whether you're snapping pets or wildlife, a key challenge is animals' unpredictability and skittishness.
Getting the perfect picture requires a lot of trial and error, patience, and clever positioning. With fast moving creatures, agility, luck, and being in the right place at the right time play a large part, as the sneaky critters rarely hold still for long enough for you to take time composing your shot.
There are, however, a couple of tactics that can help.
Animals won't pose for you, but shooting in burst mode means you can automatically take numerous shots in rapid succession. You'll get a gallery of images, so you can pick the one from that split second where your subject was perfectly positioned.
Powerful cameras can shoot at different frame rates per second (FPS). FPS is simply the number of images your camera will take in a second. About five FPS should be your expectation for an average DSLR or compact camera; higher-end ones will manage more than this.
Some phones can do this too, so check your settings. All iPhones from the last few years, for example, offer a 'Live Photos' setting - this records what happens between 1.5 seconds before and 1.5 seconds after you take a picture, giving you some leeway if your timing is askew; it shows as a sort of moving photo by default, but you can look at each frame individually and select the best. Bear in mind that live photos take up lots of memory.
This is only an option for DSLR and mirrorless cameras with interchangeable lenses. A zoom lens, as its name suggests, lets you stay in the same place and 'zoom' in our out on your subject by changing the focal length.
Different lenses have different ranges of focal length; a zoom lens might be able to adjust between 18 and 100mm, for example.
If your priority is zooming in on distant creatures, consider investing in a specialist telephoto lens. These have focal lengths starting at 50mm and going up to 500mm or even higher. You'll need a separate lens for wide-angle shots, though.
If an animal whizzes by faster than your camera's shutter opens and closes, this will create motion blur; while this can create an artistic effect, it may not be what you're looking for. A rapid shutter speed will create a crisp image, freezing that darting robin or dog leaping for a ball mid-flight.
Slow shutter speeds also mean that the sensor is exposed to light for longer. This can be a boost for low-light photography, but increases the risk of shot-wrecking camera shake, so you'll need a tripod to keep the camera steady.
Some photographers intentionally set low shutter speeds because the time lapse creates interesting visuals, but this is quite hard to get right. This is called long-exposure photography.
It's the perfect time to snap spring flowers - whether it's crocuses, daffodils, tulips or hyacinths, or even the bugs that visit them.
Getting the perfect close-up that turns a photo from 'meh' to marvellous can be tricky, but there are some tips that stand true for these smaller, less volatile subjects.
When you want to focus in on a particular flower, or the bee feeding on its nectar, you may find that the background of the shot is full of clutter that draws the eye's attention away. To avoid this, you can use the advanced settings of a digital camera to change the aperture.
When you have a wide aperture (represented by a small f-stop number), you decrease the depth of field. This means that objects further away from the camera become blurry, while objects in the foreground remain crystal clear.
Some mobile phones allow you to achieve a similar effect through a dedicated portrait mode. If you have this setting, give it a try and see if it helps.
Unless it's a particularly breezy day, flowers and other fauna give you more freedom to compose your shot since the subject won't be whizzing around (unless you're capturing a bee or a butterfly in flight around said flowers, in which case our previous advice applies).
Avoid positioning the focal point - the thing you want to draw attention to - in the very centre of the frame.
A precisely centred image can look unnatural, as it doesn't represent how things appear in real life. It can also create a strange effect where the picture appears bisected.
The key is to just shift the main subject to the side, and slightly up or down, a little. This simple rule can help you create more natural, dynamic shots.
When you're capturing the inside of a flower or a ladybird perched on a leaf, you can create a striking image by having the subject take up the whole frame.
This is one of those types of photography where a smartphone probably won't cut it - it just won't have the ability to focus in on such a tight close up, and the image will almost certainly appear blurry. To take great macro shots, you'll need a mirrorless or DSLR camera with a dedicated macro lens.
A macro lens is designed for taking extremely up-close photos. These lenses have a reproduction ratio that is close to 1:1, which simply means that the sensor records the actual, full size of an object as it really is.
So the butterfly or toadstool that fills up your eyes' whole field of vision when viewed up close looks equally large when a good macro lens is used.
Be careful about your positioning. You can cast a shadow over the subject if you creep too close.
Macro lenses come in different focal lengths, from the short range (35-60mm) to the long range (150-200mm) and anywhere in-between.
For insects, flowers and small creatures, you want a macro lens with a longer focal length of 100m or above so you can stay around 30cm away from the subject. This will help you to avoid scaring insects away and obstructing light from above.
You don't need a specialist camera to apply many of our tips, but if you're keen on taking the plunge and getting a digital camera then here are three at different price points that, on paper, should fit the bill. You'll need to click through to our full digital camera reviews to find out if they made it as Which? Best Buys.
This is one of the newest mirrorless cameras we've tested. At £1,799, it's not as pricey as some high-end cameras, but it's still far from cheap. Features that make it suitable for some of the more advanced photography we've talked about above include:
Is it worth spending the best part of £2,000 on? Find out in our Panasonic Lumix S5 review.
This is a completely different kind of digital camera. It won't let you take some of the advanced photography we've talked about above, but it's made to be as hardy as possible, meaning that it can cope with drops, shocks and being dunked underwater.
If your idea of wildlife photography is battling against the elements with a few falls and bumps along the way, you'll probably want a camera that's durable.
At £369, this one's not prohibitively expensive to replace either in case you drop it irredeemably down a crevasse on your adventures.
The TG-6 isn't capable of switching lenses, reaching lightning fast shutter speeds, and it doesn't even have a viewfinder. But it's capable of a lot too, including:
Are you sacrificing image quality for toughness? Our expert review of the Olympus Tough TG-6 reveals all.
This is the cheapest interchangeable lens camera on our site, at £349. It comes bundled with a 24-65mm zoom lens and, since it's a mirrorless camera, you can buy and attach compatible macro lenses or zoom lenses with a greater focal length.
If you want to be able to access the advanced settings we've discussed in this article, then this model fits the bill. It's less powerful than more premium cameras, but at a lower price point, it's suitable for novices and beginners. Handy wildlife photography features include:
Read our expert review of the Panasonic LUMIX DC-GX880 to find out whether a budget mirrorless camera is as good as an expensive one.