3 Fall Photography Tips: Set Your Camera for Fall Colours

(With Detailed Examples to Try!)

Fall is a photographer’s dream season, with vibrant colours and dramatic lighting around every corner. Whether you’re hiking through a forest or taking a stroll in the park, capturing the beauty of autumn requires a few smart camera settings. Let’s dive deeper into 3 Fall Photography Tips with some hands-on examples to try.

1- Use Aperture Priority for Landscape Shots

Fall Photography Tip

One of the best ways to capture the full range of fall colours is to keep everything sharp and in focus. For landscape photography, this means using Aperture Priority mode.

What is Aperture Priority?
Aperture Priority (A or Av mode) allows you to control the aperture (the opening that lets light into your camera) while your camera automatically adjusts the shutter speed. Choosing a smaller aperture (higher f-number) increases your depth of field, making more of your scene appear sharp from front to back.

Example to Try:

• Set your camera to Aperture Priority (A/Av).
• Start with an aperture of f/8 or f/11.
• Focus on a landscape that includes trees, mountains, and a wide view of the sky.
• Take a test shot and notice how the entire scene—from the colourful leaves in the foreground to the distant hills—is sharp.

If you’re photographing a subject close up (like a leaf or mushroom), you might want to lower your f-stop to f/2.8 or f/4to blur the background, making the subject stand out against soft, autumn tones.

2- Spot Metering for Perfect Exposure

Fall lighting can be tricky. Sometimes you’ll find yourself dealing with a bright sky and shadowed areas, which can lead to under- or overexposure in parts of your image. Spot Metering helps solve this by allowing your camera to measure light only in a specific area of the frame, ensuring accurate exposure for your subject.

What is Spot Metering?
Spot metering lets you measure the brightness of a small area in your scene—usually the point where you’ve focused—allowing you to expose for the highlights or shadows, depending on what you want to emphasize.

Example to Try:

• Set your camera to Spot Metering (refer to your camera’s manual if you’re not sure how).
• Focus on a colourful tree in the middle of your frame. Position the focus point on the brightest leaves or on the trunk.
• Adjust your exposure based on the meter reading from that point.
• Take a test shot. Notice how the tree is perfectly exposed, with vibrant colours and well-defined details, even if other parts of the image are slightly darker or lighter.

This works especially well when shooting against a bright sky or in dappled sunlight, where the contrast between light and dark can throw off your exposure in general metering modes.

3- Enhance Colours with Camera Settings

Fall Photography Tip

Fall’s vibrant palette of reds, oranges, and yellows looks even more striking when you boost the saturation in your images. Many cameras have built-in settings that allow you to tweak colour intensity.

What are Picture Styles/Controls?
Most DSLR and mirrorless cameras allow you to choose a “Picture Style” (Canon) or “Picture Control” (Nikon), which affects the overall look of your images. For fall photography, using the VIVID or LANDSCAPE option will enhance the saturation and contrast, giving your photos more punch and making those autumn colours pop.

Example to Try:

• On a Canon camera, go to Picture Style and select VIVID or LANDSCAPE.
• On a Nikon camera, choose Picture Control and set it to VIVID or LANDSCAPE.
• Go out and photograph a mix of red, orange, and yellow leaves against a bright blue sky.
• Take a test shot, and notice the enhanced saturation and richness in the colours.

If your camera has a custom mode, you can even increase the saturation and contrast manually to your liking. This is especially useful when shooting in overcast conditions, where the light might make colours look muted.

Bonus Tip: Experiment with Polarizing Filters

A polarizing filter can further enhance your fall photos by reducing reflections and glare, especially when shooting near water or wet leaves. It also boosts the contrast in the sky, making clouds stand out more clearly against the rich fall colours.

Example to Try:

• Attach a polarizing filter to your lens.
• Find a scene with a reflective surface, like a river, lake, or wet leaves after rain.
• Rotate the filter while looking through your viewfinder, and notice how reflections diminish and the colours become deeper and more saturated.

Polarizing filters can also enhance the blue of the sky, creating stunning contrast against the golden autumn leaves.

Let’s make this autumn your best photography season yet. Happy shooting!