Hi, I'm Doug McKinlay and you're watching AdoramaTV.
AdoramaTV presents Stay Focused with Doug MacKinlay
Now it's that time of year again, autumn my favorite time of year to shoot.
But I find it overwhelming, even daunting
at times there's just so much to get in. From really big landscapes to tiny little
details, also some fantastic colors deep reds, oranges, and bright yellows. All
bookended by a limited time frame. We might have a week or two at the very
most when the color's are at their prime to get our images. So before going anywhere I
need to think about what I want to achieve and what I need to bring with me
in order to get those images.
Location, location, location is the prime directive when it comes to autumn photography. you
need to know your area, and that often means scouting locations throughout the year
and keeping a mental note of where the best spots will be when the color shifts.
If you happen to be visiting say, North America, you know that in the East there's going to be lots of
deciduous forests, where the colors will change, whereas in the west they're mostly
fir trees, where the colors won't change. So know your location, whether you are at home or you're away.
So for Autumn pictures, the landscape rules apply especially when it comes a time of day
An hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset, 'the magic hours', are still the best time to shoot.
But there is a bit of a debate when it comes to weather, cloudy days or sunny
days? Now sunny day you are going to get brightly lit, back-lit, vibrant, contrasting color.
Personally, I like cloudy days where I get a deeper color, a more true color.
When it comes to metering I tend to stick with matrix metering, I just get better more even
results. And for exposures I tend to under expose by about half a stop. During film days we
call thickening the negative, basically it helps to improve the color a little bit,
deepens the saturation a little bit and don't forget to shoot raw and always shoot in manual.
Now your point of view is also going to have an affect on your pictures, your final image.
Personally I favor looking down
from an elevated position from one side of a valley to the other. With a nice big lot of trees, like
behind me. It also allows me to use longer lenses, now I really like longer lenses for autumn pictures.
They allow me to zone to in on a patch of color, creating this nice big canvas. I also like the way that
that longer lenses reduce the depth of field and compress the pictures. But that's not
the only lenses I use, I do use my 24, 35 and a 50 for the bigger landscape shots, and I will switch
to a macro when I want nice tight shots, say of leaves or something. The 1.4 lenses allow
me to blur the background if I need to, or I can shoot at f11 or f16 for that really great
tack sharp foreground to background shot.
So another element that can add some punch to your autumn color pictures, is throwing
a bit of water in the mix. I'm thinking lakes ponds and streams. Now ponds and lakes for those
great reflections you get specially in the morning, when things are calm. The stream adds a little bit of
motion. Now in a previous video we looked at some of the filters that help with this,
the graduated neutral density filter, and the standard neutral density filter. I would still use
these, but I would add my polarizer as well, as this helps to take a bit of glare off the water
and cuts down the contrast of foliage. Other things to be aware of are things like fog
and mist, they add a real sense of mystery to your pictures. Look for autumn frost on
your leaves in the mornings, all this stuff really helps to make your
pictures sing.
So that's it from me and I'm Doug McKinlay for AdoramaTV. Now we've been talking about
autumn color pictures, the way I work, I want to hear how you work, so please send
us in lots of suggestions and lots of ideas don't forget to subscribe to AdoramaTV
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