This journey will take you to the discovery of a beautiful gem in the heart of the Atlantic Ocean. Madeira, also known as the “Floating Garden,” is an archipelago located above the Canary Islands, 545 km northwest of the African coast, but belonging to Portugal.
In this volcanic paradise, very rich of different landscapes, prevails a captivating contrast of colors between the lush green and the black of the rocks, thanks to the combination of high humidity and a mild climate throughout the year.
Exploring Madeira, in a short time, you can admire rugged coastlines, majestic mountains, and laurel forests like the magic Fanal. Additionally, there are many waterfalls reachable through beautiful trails, while the night gives a perfect sky for night photography.
All of this makes this small island a true paradise for those who love nature and landscape photography.
Highlights
- Experience and photograph the beauty of this wild island, hidden waterfalls, lush ancient forests, wild beaches, rugged sea stacks, mountain peaks above the clouds, “miradouro” with breathtaking views and colorful flowers and much more!
- Adventure to the most beautiful hidden waterfall
- Hunt for the Milky Way above the clouds
- Aerial photography with the drone
- Small group of 10 people (5 each pro photo guide)
- Only good hotels with private double room and private bathroom
- Natural pools in Porto Moniz, sauna and Jacuzzi
- Improve your day and night photography skills
- Editing lesson with recording
Wanna join?
What can you expect from this photographic tour?
Join us for an exciting adventure in Madeira! Our Madeira Photography Tour is designed to help you improve your photography skills and create lasting memories.
During the tour, we’ll visit some of Madeira’s most beautiful locations and stay in strategically located hotels. From capturing stunning sunrises and sunsets to photographing the night sky in a wild landscape. You’ll experience Madeira island at its best.
In these 7 days, you’ll have the opportunity to immerse yourself in the unique natural beauty of this island. Our tour is perfect for photography lovers who want to explore Madeira’s landscapes.
All you need is a passion for photography and a willingness to share this experience with a small group of likeminded people.
We’ll provide in-field tutoring and cover both theory and practical aspects of photography, including post-processing classes where we’ll work on the images we’ve captured together.
Photo tour itinerary
Note: the program may change depending on the weather. We are flexible and will adapt to any situation in order to give you the best possible experience.
Meeting point: June 12th – Madeira Airport (FNC), not later that 3pm
Departure: On June 18th in the early morning we will bring the group back to the meeting point.
Day 1
Ribeira da Janela, Fanal forest – The meeting point will be at the airport, where you will find our private shuttle waiting for you. After a brief presentation on what we will be facing during the Madeira photography tour, we will reach our first hotel in Porto Moniz. Relaxation, dinner and we will prepare for our first sunset at Ribeira da Janela beach. After the sunset phot session we will go hunting for the Milky Way in another fairytale spot, the Fanal forest, where we will focus on the creation of single exposures and double exposures without using the star tracker.
Around 2am we will be at the hotel.
Day 2
Porto Moniz, Miradouro de Sao Cristovao, hidden waterfall – Sunrise photo session at one of the most beautiful Miraduro of the island, where rugged mountains stand out from the ocean. After sunrise we will go back to the hotel for breakfast.
A few hours of free time and relaxation to enjoy the natural pools, sauna and Jacuzzi; or simply visit Porto Moniz on foot.
During the afternoon we will leave for our hike to Madeira’s most beautiful waterfall, nestled in a corner of paradise amid lush greenery in deep Madeira.
Sunset photo session on our way back to the hotel at another breathtaking Miradouro.
Day 3
Ribeira da Janela, Fanal forest – Sunrise at Praia da Ribeira da Janela, waiting for the sunstar to filter between the stacks, among flowers and a river flowing into the ocean.
After breakfast we will take the morning of day 3 off to enjoy the hotel.
After lunch we will have our first post-processing lesson where we will study how to manage all the various techniques studied in the field and we will face a complete workflow of one photo.
Before sunset we will reach Fanal Forest; at this time it’s often shrouded in fog and low clouds. After the sunset photo session we will have a packed dinner in the forest waiting for the Milky Way photo session.
Day 4
Machico, Pico do Arieiro – After breakfast and relaxation we will check out and reach our next hotel in southeastern Madeira.
During the afternoon we will face a new post-processing session. Today we are looking at some more advanced aspects of night photography. More specifically, how to manage and merge the files of a panoramic night image and how to get the most details from a Milky Way image.
Next, at around 5pm we head out to photograph the sunset at Pico do Aireiro. Here we need 30 minutes hike to reach the top.
If the sky is clear we will have another packed dinner looking forward to a fantastic Milky Way photo session above the clouds.
Day 5
Miradouro do Guindaste, Miradouro da Luna, Ponta de Sao Lourenco – This morning at sunrise we will be at another incredible miradouro where the ocean view will leave you breathless.
During the afternoon we will explore this peninsula among succulent plants and stacks overlooking the ocean. We will face the sunset photo session at one of the many spots that are within a few minutes’ walk of each other. Dinner at a restaurant.
Day 6
Ponta de Sao Lourenco, Pico Ruivo – This morning the alarm rings early, an hour of hiking awaits us to reach the most beautiful view of the whole island. Here the landscape changes completely, everything is arid with succulent plants and the coast plunging into the ocean.
After some relaxation at the hotel we will leave to reach Pico Ruivo, another 40 minutes of exciting hike among flowers and mountain ridges to reach Madeira’s highest peak at 1862 meters. Sunset photo session among flowers and dead trees. Also tonight we will try to capture the Milky Way in this crazy scenery.
Day 7
Departure from Madeira Airport (FNC)
Additional information
- Max group size of 10 participants (5 each pro photo guide), allowing for plenty of 1-to-1 time.
- We will stay in good hotels with private double rooms and private bathrooms (single room available by paying supplement)
- We will change 2 hotels in strategic locations to optimize driving hours, time and photographic schedule.
- We can enjoy lunches and dinners in the various restaurants.
- During the free mornings, you can choose either to relax at the hotel or go for a walk.
- To avoid unnecessary long drives and to make the most out of the time we have, we’re going to have 2 or 3 packed lunches and dinners. We will buy food from the supermarket, or pick up something easy to take away and have lunch dinner in the middle of nature.
- When we have dinner in the middle of nature, we will take warm clothes with us to be able to face the night photo session in the best comfort.
- Every day there will be short and easy walks from the van to the spots. Only two days there will be walking to reach the most beautiful waterfall on the island and another spot for sunrise, 5 hours both ways (flat trail) for the waterfall and 40 minutes for the second spot.
- During the week we will do more editing sessions in front of the computer, analyzing and editing the shots obtained, from the raw files to the web files. Where we will see how to manage all the techniques studied in the field.
- The edit sessions will be recorded and at the end we will send you the videos, so that you can review and study them calmly.
- The priority is photography, but there will be no shortage of moments of comfort and relaxation.
- We highly recommend a private Travel Insurance to cover any non-refundable fees and airline travel you may have in connecting with the photographic tour.
Tour leaders
Giulio Cobianchi is a professional landscape photographer, experienced and specialized in night photography with 10 years of experience. His passions are the search for dark skies to better capture the wonder of the night sky and the exploration of new places where wild nature gives the best of itself. These passions have led him to travel to the most beautiful and wild places in the world and Madeira is one of them. His satisfaction is making your dream come true.
Stefan Liebermann is an award winning professional international landscape photographer specializing in night photography. This passion of his drove him to travel all over the world under the darkest skies ever. He can teach you, like few others, the best secrets to getting high impact night photos.
Participation
In order to offer the best quality, the maximum of attendees has been limited, so that we can follow each participant closely and in the best way possible.
A minimum is also been set for the tour to be confirmed.
Minimum: 6 participants
Maximum: 10 participants
Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Payment
To reserve your seat, you can pay a deposit via bank transfer or via Stripe at the moment of the booking and the remaining part within 30 days before departure.
Total cost: 2990€
Deposit: 700€
Tour dates: June 12th – 18th, 2026
Single room supplement: 800€
The cost include
- 2 professional photographers who will teach you their special personal techniques
- All the accomodations in private double rooms in hotels (private single room available by booking at the time of photo tour registration and paying the supplement of 800 euros at the balance)
- Jacuzzi, Sauna and natural pools
- All breakfasts
- All transfers by van
- Fuel
- Tolling of private roads / parking lots and any things used to reach spots
- Transport to and from the airport
- Support Whatsapp private group
- Photo editing lessons with registrations
The cost doesn’t include
- International flights
- Lunches, dinners and drinks (which will sometimes be packed)
- Medical health insurance
- Theft / damage / travel insurance
- Everything that is not included in the item “The cost include”
FAQs
What will you learn on this photo tour?
Between amazing sceneries, good photography and a lot of fun, we hope to give you an experience and adventure that you’ll remember for the rest of your life.
We don’t just want to give you an experience, though. We want to make sure you’re excited about the photographs you’ve captured on our various outings.
In addition to teaching photographic theories and techniques, we want to convey our passion and make you feel those emotions that being out in nature with a camera can give.
- Better manage your photographic equipment in easy and difficult situations
- Plan the shot through the use of apps and websites
- Read the histogram, both during shooting and in post-processing
- Compositional rules and the fundamentals to create impactful images
- How to use filters
- Manage various kind of lights, at sunset, sunrise and long exposures
- Choosing the right white balance
- Focus and hyperfocal distance
- The importance of the aperture
- The right shooting settings based on the scene, ISO, aperture, shutter speed and exposure compensation
- Masks and layers
- Dodge and burn
- Choice of color profiles (sRGB, Adobe RGB, Pro photo RGB)
- Use the tracker to get the best detail of the Milky Way and less digital noise. From the pointing phase of the Polaris to the shooting phase
- Recognize the night sky without using apps
- Many shooting techniques that will allow you to take home some “wow” photos, including focus stacking, mean stacking, perspective blend, multi exposure, focal blend, time blend
- Panoramic photography, day and night, from the arrangement of the equipment, to the merging of the shots in post production
- How to get details of the Milky Way, from the shooting phase to the edit
- Milky Way Color Processing
- Tips and tricks that pertain to our specific workflow
How can I reach the meeting point?
The meeting point is Funchal Airport, not after 3pm on May 8th
On May 10th in the morning we will bring the group back to the meeting point
Please the departure from Funchal Airport on May 14th no earlier that 10am
What level of photography is required ?
All of ours photo tours are open to beginners as well as professionals. Our only criteria is that you have a great passion for photography, and have the energy and motivation to be on the go every day and night.
What physical level is required?
No particular level of preparation is required. There will be some elevation gain in the two hikes but nothing difficult and all on a non-exposed path.
What kind of weather should I expect?
Madeira is an incredible island, the temperatures change within a few km of car.
During the day, along the coasts we will find temperatures on average warm, very pleasant, between 18 and 25 degrees. During the night on the mountains where we will take the photos we will be at about 1800 meters, the temperatures will drop approaching 3 or 4 degrees.
Documents and currency
- Passport/ identity card valid for travel broad
- The country’s currency is the Euro
- Visa/MasterCard credit card are accepted (you may have some problems with American Express)
- You can withdraw Euro in every ATM with a debit card
What camera gear should I bring?
At the very least, bring your own camera, lenses and tripod. If you are considering upgrading or investing in new camera gear prior to the trip, feel free to ask us for advice.
Photographic filters and a remote shutter release remote control are also recommended for those wanting to do long exposure photography.
The weather is cold during the night so extra batteries are useful.
We also suggest bringing multiple cloths to clean the lenses and a spare memory card.
What clothes should I bring?
Madeira island has a nice and mild climate (min 15°/max 30°) so summer clothing is ideal.
A windbreaker/sweatshirt is sufficient in the evenings as the average temperature is still warm.
During the day it’s important to protect yourself from the sun with a hat and possibly a sunscreen.
Up on then mountains we will be about 1700/1800 meters above sea level. The temperature here is a lot lower than down by the sea. You can expect temperatures down to zero degrees Celsius.
Winter clothes and good layers are essential to stay warm during the night sessions.
Hiking shoes and water repellent clothes are recommended.
How should I manage my suitcases?
Each participant can bring a suitcase and a photographic backpack.
This is to optimize the space in our van while traveling between the various places and from the Funchal airport to the hotels / from the hotels to Funchal airport.
To offer maximum comfort we have limited the number of customers, so there is always an empty space in the van to be more comfortable.
How should I organize the backpack and the various things to carry around?
You only need to organize your backpack on the day of the longest hike, when we go to photograph the most beautiful waterfall on the island.
It’s important to have:
- Mirrorless or reflex
- Wide angle and medio tele lens
- Tripod
- Some food
- Water
- Warm and water repellent clothes
