Best Landscape Photography Locations in South Dakota

The Badlands formations are at their best in the hour before and after sunset. The banded buttes — striped in white, gray, rust, and pink — absorb and reflect warm light differently than almost anything else in the country. The Notch Trail and the Door Trail both put you among the formations at eye level; the Big Badlands Overlook and the Yellow Mounds Overlook give wider panoramic compositions. The light changes quickly in the Badlands: compositions that looked flat at 4pm turn vivid by 7pm and then deep gold in the last 20 minutes before the sun drops. Plan to be in position well before golden hour and don't leave until full blue hour has passed.

Custer State Park's Wildlife Loop Road is one of the best all-around landscape drives in the northern Great Plains. The park holds bison herds, granite spires, ponderosa pine forest, and open meadows in close proximity, which means sunset compositions are varied and you rarely have to drive far between locations. The Needles Highway at golden hour turns the granite pinnacles warm pink and orange. The open prairie near Blue Bell in the southwest corner of the park gives unobstructed western horizon shots with bison as foreground elements when the herds are near the road.

Badlands is an International Dark Sky Park with reliably dark skies and essentially no nearby light sources in any direction. The formations make extraordinary foregrounds for Milky Way photography: the eroded buttes, spires, and canyon walls in the foreground against a dense star field above produce compositions that are hard to replicate anywhere else. The Ben Reifel Visitor Center area has a designated astronomy field. The Milky Way core is up from April through October; fall is the best combination of darkness and moderate temperatures. Bring warm layers regardless of the season — temperatures drop fast after sunset at altitude.

At 7,244 feet, Black Elk Peak is the highest point in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. The summit tower gives a 360-degree view above the surrounding forest and provides some separation from the Black Hills' modest light domes. The hike to the summit is 3.5 miles one way from the Sylvan Lake trailhead, which limits casual traffic on weeknights. The stone fire tower at the summit is a strong foreground element for wide-angle Milky Way compositions. Conditions at the summit can turn quickly; check wind and temperature forecasts before committing to a night hike.

The Buffalo Gap National Grassland wraps around the south and east sides of Badlands National Park and gives access to open prairie and Badlands-edge terrain outside the park's flight restrictions. The transition zone where the grass prairie gives way to the eroded Badlands formations is particularly striking from altitude: two completely different visual environments in the same frame. Wind is nearly always a factor here, so Dronecast's gust forecast is worth checking carefully before launching — prairie gusts can be abrupt and strong, especially in spring and fall.

The Missouri River at Chamberlain and the surrounding Lake Francis Case reservoir give aerial views that read clearly as the geographic divide between the eastern prairie and the western plains. The wide river bends, bluffs, and agricultural patchwork from above have a graphic quality that's distinct from both the Badlands and the Black Hills. The area is largely Class G airspace away from the Chamberlain Municipal Airport, and the Corps of Engineers manages recreation areas along the shoreline that serve as launch points. Morning calm is more reliable than afternoon when plains winds tend to build.