Autumn Landscapes Page 2

Backlit leaves can make great photos, if exposed carefully. Here, Jeremy metered off the leaves to ensure a correct exposure for them while letting the potentially distracting background go almost black.

Don’t forget to look up as well as down for photo opportunities!

Lighting and exposure
Different types of weather will give you different types of light, from the clear crisp light that follows a rainstorm to soft shadowless light that comes with mist and fog, with each type useable when shooting autumnal scenes. Don’t dismiss dull overcast days as down time when you can’t shoot, as these conditions are perfect for shooting in woods and forests when you need to keep the contrast to a minimum and avoid big black shadows and stark highlights from bright sunlight.

On the other hand, bright sunlight is great for backlighting leaves and making them radiate colour, especially if you frame them against a dark background. Try shooting with the light coming across your image at 90° to you, which will help bring out texture, shape and form.

Exposure control as always is very important; light readings with built-in meters on modern cameras are almost foolproof and the exposure latitude with digital is incredible, but you still have to be very careful to avoid burning out your highlights. Check the histogram on the camera monitor to make sure you are within acceptable tolerances and, as a starting point, meter for the mid-tones. Not everything has to be shot at f/22 and at 1/500th of a second, so try shooting wide open and using a shallow depth of field for effect. Think about using slow shutter speeds for blurred wind-blown leaves and branches – experimenting won’t cost anything. Such are the joys of shooting digitally.

Even built-up urban areas can provide great photo opportunities if you look

Tips
• Histogram – Use your camera’s histogram to check your image is correctly exposed.

• Highlights – Keep an eye on these so that they don’t burn out and lose detail. Your histogram may flash to indicate where the image has been overexposed.

• Filters – Use ND grads to balance the exposure between the foreground and the sky.

As with every other season, the best light for landscape photography usually occurs early in the morning or last thing in the evening – with or without a sunrise/sunset to enhance the colours in the sky. With pictures like this that include a lot of sky, be careful over metering. A Neutral Density graduated filter will balance the brightness levels between the sky and the darker foreground, so any sky detail can be preserved without underexposing the ground.

Mist and fog are common in autumn and can add atmosphere to your shots. Here, by shooting into the light, the foreground trees have become a silhouette.