Posts Tagged ‘ fall ’

How to take great fall photos!

Monday, October 19th, 2009

Waiting for Fall

Waiting for Fall

Now that fall has arrived I feel it fit to write all of you a little post on getting the best colours out of your camera this fall. A lot of this is mere point form, and if you would like more information just leave a comment.

  1. Get out early! or late depending on your shooting location. The sun rises around 730am and gets to an amazing colour point at about 8am, and rises in ESE. Getting out early will shine a golden light on the trees and the reds and oranges will become more vibrant and the greens will dim down a bit focusing on the fall colours.
  2. Bundle Up! – Its fall, and when that sun isn’t up yet it is darn cold!
  3. Bring a tri-pod. You will be shooting in the best light of the day, but it is still low light, which requires you to use a tripod for a nice sharp shot. If you plan on shooting HDR(High Dynamic Range) a tri-pod is an absolute must!
  4. The Settings. This is often the hardest part for most entry level photographers to get right, and secrectly its the hard part for every photographer because it is always changing. So here is what I do.
    1. Shoot in AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) Look up in your camera manual how to turn it on, and set it to 0, -1, +1, this will give you 3 different photos that you can choose from to use.
    2. Shoot in RAW(if you have a DSLR look in your manual yet again, PnS do not have this option). Shooting in RAW allows you to take those 2 photos choose the best and tweak it the slightest bit without ruining the photo to get what you actually saw.
    3. The mode: I personally shoot in AV (also Aperture Priority mode). This is where I set my aperture and the camera figures out the shutter speed for me. I use and aperture between f8-f11 (this is the “sweet spot” of my lens, the spot that gives the sharpest photo)
    4. Shoot ISO 200-400, You do not want an ISO that is too low, because you will get noise from there being not enough light and you said there was, and you don’t want to high, because regardless you will get noise. So outdoors in morning or evening light 200-400 is safe. mid-day shoot 100 or lower, and night time 640-800 max with a tripod (unless you know your censor can handle more than 800 w/o noise)
    5. Focusing: You want to focus in the mid ground of your picture, not all the back at the trees, and not too close to that rock! But right in the middle. With your low apeture (high number) this will give you a nice sharp photo.
    6. The rest of the settings: White Balance, set to auto, you can fix that later if its wrong, but it does a pretty good Job. Metering: Evaluative Spot Metering, this will meter the camera to the majority of the scenes light. Picture mode: use the mode on your camera where it does not change anything, my DSLR is Standard or Natural picture mode.
  5. The Composition: How you set up your photo is just as important as how you take your photo. Choose a location that (A) has the colours and look in the trees that you want, (B) is in a location that the sun will shine on while rising or setting, (C) has more than just trees! Remember early where I said Focus on the middle of the composition, while this is why. Position your colourful trees in the background, something else in the mid ground like a stream, structure, or old tractor – something not too distracting but fits in -, and something in your foreground, like a rock or fens etc. See my photo to the right.

With these simple steps you should be on your way to a great fall photo. If you have any questions just ask!

Also posted at London Photowalk by James Wilkinson

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