What this blog article is about…
Thought I would talk about and share a few tips on fall color landscape photography.
HDR
HDR processing with some images works really well, especially on overcast and rainy days. With whatever HDR program you are working with you can darken the cloudy sky and can create more of an ominous looking image. I always apply just a little of the HDR effect and it is easy to overdo. Usually with HDR photography you take 3-5 different exposure images and the program pulls them altogether in one final image to be processed. However, you can use a single image with most of the HDR software. Sometimes it will work and sometimes it will not.
Back-Light
Back-lighting is great while in an area seek out subjects that have a brighter background than foreground. Light passing through the leaves create wonderful color, detail and a great ‘translucency’ appearance. Experiment shooting a group of leafs or a single leaf.
Look Closely
Work the details. That is, shoot close-ups of leaves, bark, ground cover, all can provide a look that is different than simply a large group shot of leaves and trees. If you get out early in the morning you most often will find raindrops or dew on leaves. This adds an extra “pop” and interest to the image.
Polarizer Filter
The polarizer is a great filter to have with you on overcast and rainy days. Leaves have reflections on them from the overcast sky and using the Polarizer removes those reflections and saturates color on the leaves even better.
White Balance
Shoot with your white balance setting on Cloudy instead of daylight even when the sun is out. The Cloudy setting adds warmth to images. Or, learn how to set you camera’s “Pre White” balance. For more information about this, read this article: Camera White Balance – A Secret Tool for Dazzling Color Images
Camera Histogram
Watch the histogram. Leaves on an overcast or sunny sky usually have reflections on the surface, its easy for those to get a little overblown, so check your histogram for this. When in doubt, take multiple exposures.
Conclusion
Fall is here and there are so many great locations where you live to shoot great images. Keep these tips in mind and let me know how your fall color shooting goes.
As always, thanks for stopping by and reading this article.
~ BEST ~
Great tips Rick! I’d also like to add for any other Canon shooters who follow you, set your camera to display the rgb histogram on the lcd. It’s been my experience, with my former 40D and my current 7D, that they like to over expose/over saturate the reds. The luminance histogram might show everything is just fine, but the rgb will show the red clipping.
Thanks Jeff. And yes, great tip!