Shooting in the fall
October is one of the best times for a photowalk. October offers a window of opportunity for photographing fall colors at their peak. The window for capturing dramatic and dynamic fall images, is short. Don’t put off taking that photo because fall is a time of change, and you think things will look the same tomorrow, but they wont.
Here are some basic tips for photographing in the fall.
Shoot early and late in the day. Try to shoot a half-hour before and after sunrise or sunset. The colors will be noticeably richer, the shadows deeper, textures and forms stronger. Early morning is one of the best times to capture the color of fall reflected in a pond or lake as the water is usually still and the light is coming in at a low angle.
Shoot right after a rain storm. The light is usually more dramatic, and wet leaves, structures, and even roads take on more vibrant, intense color tones.
Shoot from all angles. Move around to find the most dramatic composition. A few steps can make the difference. Experiment.
Look for contrasting colors. Include visually opposing colors in your photo for dramatic contrasts and more intense color. A bright orange tree will look even brighter when photographed next to a green evergreen.
Try using a warm polarizer filter when you’re shooting colorful red and orange trees. Another option is to increase your cameras saturation settings to produce vivid punchy colors, consult your camera’s manual to see if you have the ability to boost the saturation settings. You’ll be sure to be please with the results.
October is a wonderful time of the year for photographs. Be sure and get out and shoot.
Agree with all of the above.
White balance and contrast are important, too.
For white balance, choosing a “shade” or “cloudy” preset helps the maintain the primary colors Putting the white balance on Auto + 1 / +2 / +3 helps, too. It’s counter-intuitive, but in reality, blue light is warmer than red light. In the fall, when there is more shade, red light is more abundant. If using a Circular Polarizing filter, set the filter first, then set the white balance. The filter can play tug of war with the white balance setting.
The contrast is important, too. Contrast is another picture control which can be set incrementally on most DSLRs. Tweaking the contrast lower can prevent radioactive shiners often found in hiking shots. Nikon’s Active D-Lighting works great for balancing out the contrast, too without having to post-process in Photoshop. Pushing the ISO to increase shutter speed usually results in a noisier picture with a thinner depth of field than one would want for a landscape shot.
A monopod or tripod works wonders. Even with a monopod, it’s possible to keep the ISO down at 100 or 200, either by limiting the Auto ISO or setting it yourself. Then, if it’s a DX-format camera, doubling the focal length will give you a good shutter speed (example: 50mm = 1/100th of a sec) and usually the aperature will fall between F-5.6 and F-11 where most lenses produce their sharpest results.
I’ve found it’s usually better to over-expose the shot by 1/3EV or 2/3EV to eliminate any excessive bright shots, like sun breaking through clouds and tree cover on an otherwise cloudy day. That way, once you get the shot home and onto the computer, it’s easy to make a slight correct to the fill-light for the entire picture instead of having to burn in the really bright spots.
John Finster
November 25, 2010 at 10:53 pm