Sometimes there are species that are easier to identify thanks to small details in pictures or even things that can’t be photographed (such as smell or sound). Sometimes they can be hard to miss if people aren’t familiar with them. For the species you tend to specialise in IDing, what are things yo…

There’re many topics covering that question, so you can look up taxa you’re interested in and will find something: https://forum.inaturalist.org/search?q=tips

For a lot of spiders, the eye field is a major clue to at least get it to family level. And for many a ventral shot, please. Oh and legs. And dorsal. And palps. Oh and…

For plants: No Flowers: Really hard to identify some plants by just the leaves, these ones end up as just ‘Plant’ most of the time. Just One Flower: A photo of the flower without seeing how it connects to the stem or without any photos of the whole plant or leaves at the bottom. Link to another t…

More photos from different angles is always better than a single photo, which might not capture some important characteristic. True for almost any organism.

For plants it’s very well desrcibed here, I would say most plants are idable by leaves, problem is mostly with who id them and how many people do that. https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/helpful-tips-and-resources-for-beginner-plant-inatters-and-common-beginner-mistakes/28824

Yes, for spiders (if they can be identified by pictures at all) a clear ventral (including eye region) + dorsal (including epgynal region) shot increases your chances of getting it IDed. In most cases that is the best you can do… sometimes crisps shots of legs can be helpful as well as the distingu…

This makes me feel better about posting a single spider from 19 different camera angles. I feel a little silly doing so, but I figure I’ll get better at narrowing down which images are important and which aren’t in time.

My group hikes in fynbos every week. We stick to plants when they are in flower. Only leaves … not this week, thanks. Ours is called fynbos from Dutch, fine leaved shrubs. MANY fine leaved shrubs. 8 hundred ericas for example. Some plants have unmistakable leaves.

Plants that I see ALL the time and am familiar with how they look at different stages I can usually figure out without flowers. Most other ones that I could recognize with flowers, I have no clue when they are too young/small for flowers (I can figure some of those from just seed/fruit).

That’s true. I’m definitely more of a beginner when it comes to ID. It’s been my experience that something with a flower on it is more likely to be identified than something without. When I identify, I’m more hesitant without a flower because it means the observation has fewer distinctive features. …

Useful things to photograph/document

Nature Talk

Topic		Replies	Views
Photographing for optimum ID Tutorials	16	2831	August 24, 2025
Identifiers - what do you ID, and how can observers make it easier to do so? General	69	5593	June 29, 2020
Identifiers, what parts of organisms are helpful for identification? Nature Talk question	18	2041	June 22, 2023
Identifying tips General	7	674	April 29, 2022
Photo taking recommendations by taxon? General	47	9161	August 20, 2020

Useful things to photograph/document

Related topics