Shoot gorgeous autumn colors

Polarizing lenses, medium grey density and gradient medium grey density filters are essential for stunning images taken in the fall. When it comes to color and impact, canvas prints fall is full of opportunity. This season is an incredible opportunity to shoot with colors to create emotions while capturing landscapes that change before your eyes. Try to get special images, but shooting in the fall can be challenging.

Great photographers might never leave their homes without filters when it comes to autumn colors: polarizing lenses and mid-gray density (ND) filters. These filters were able to overcome some of the problems of shooting, canvas prints australia which could not be corrected using the previous digital approach. Therefore, in autumn photography, polarization lens and medium gray density filter are essential.

The third filter I recommend is the graduated gradnd filter. It is basically a standard medium grey density filter, but only covers part of the picture. The darker parts are used to reduce the light in the brighter parts of the scene to prevent light overexposure. This allows the camera to correctly expose the undimmed areas and balance the overall exposure.

01 polarizer

The most important filter for autumn colors is the polarizer. The filter can be used in a variety of nature photography, extra large canvas using it can significantly improve your image effects. Polarizing lenses can enhance blue sky colors, provide more saturated colors, and reduce glare and reflection under bright or sunny conditions. Polarizing lenses can eliminate glare on leaves and flowers when photographing autumn leaves. It enhances and brightens the color in the wet leaves and makes the blue sky bluer.

Another benefit of using a polarizer is that it removes atmospheric haze, increasing clarity and making the subject stand out against the sky background, thus making autumn leaves look more obvious.

When light bounces off a shiny surface, it becomes polarized. For example, when we see this reflection from the water surface, we call it glare. A polarizer rotated to the correct position will block or absorb most of the reflected glare while allowing polarized light perpendicular to the reflection to pass through. The front of the filter can be rotated to change the amount of polarized light blocked by the filter. By simply rotating the front glass, the photographer can get the desired effect in the image.

To do this correctly, place the polarizer on the lens and rotate slowly while viewing through the camera's viewfinder. The choice of where to stop the rotation is entirely up to the individual, but you want to maximize the effect until the color looks unrealistic. For example, when the scene includes a blue sky, rotate the polarizer until you get a deep blue. If rotated too much, blue may become an unrealistically dark hue, especially at higher heights. To maximize the polarizer's potential, make the sun at right angles to the camera. Face the sun, hands out to the side; The point of the arm is the direction in which the polarizer will work best. A 90-degree Angle to the sun is the best choice, because that's where the polarized light is in the sky.

One of the challenges many photographers face is determining the best time to use a polarizer. It works in many situations, but if you're not sure when to use a polarizer, hold it up and look at it with your eyes, rather than tightening it on the lens. This is a quick way to see if the polarizer is working. In autumn, the polarizer is best used at midday, when the weather is clear. At this point, it can control the brightness of the picture and increase the contrast of the scene, while eliminating fog in the scene, especially when shot with a telephoto lens. When including the sky in your composition, shooting autumn colors on a clear day can add depth to the image, especially when contrasted with bright autumn colors.

In addition to increasing blue sky saturation, using a polarizer can reduce glare and reflection. This is important because once glare appears in the image, no post-processing can eliminate it. Glare will reduce the color saturation of the image, making the image become flat, color saturation decreased. A polarizer can change this by blocking polarized light, thereby increasing color saturation.

Reflection can also be a problem if you don't have a polarizer. This is especially true in scenarios involving water. Autumn landscape photography often includes elements such as streams and lakes, which can cause unnecessary surface reflections. I like to shoot colorful images of leaves against a dark water background. Without a polarizer, this would be impossible. The filter also reduces the glare from darker rocks, thus making the leaves more prominent in color. Thus, polarizing lenses with a certain amount of polarized light enable each photographer to capture a unique style.

In the past few years, polarizers have indeed made great strides in color reproduction, fabrication, and sizing. They are now designed and manufactured lighter than ever before. The current option includes a thin mounting seat that can tighten the second filter (such as ND). They are also designed to allow more light into the camera. In the past, using a polarizer would block both. Design changes to the new polarizer have reduced it to one - stop lighting. This means more light reaches the camera sensor, increasing shutter speed or lowering the ISO. Improvements in optical glass and coatings in polarizing lenses make them stronger and more scratch-resistant, while making the glass more transparent and reducing glare. The result is a clearer picture.

Features such as color enhancement and color balance can be combined into a single filter to provide the greatest benefit for fall color photos. Augmentation filters work by using special optical glass called "optical" glass. The glass highlights one part of the spectrum while suppressing the others. Enhancers can enhance the saturation of colors in the red-orange areas of the spectrum, thus increasing those colors without affecting the overall color balance of the image, making them ideal for autumn foliage photography. One of the main features of the stunning fall image is to give the image a strong warm tone without compromising the neutral and white colors of the image.

02 medium grey density (ND) filter

Use a medium grey density (ND) filter to enhance exposure creativity. It encourages photographers to think outside the box and develop fresh concepts of looking at nature. A medium grey density filter is used to reduce the amount of light reaching the camera sensor, so a longer exposure time is required to achieve the equivalent exposure. The ND filter provides a longer exposure time and allows photographers to add movement to the picture, especially on objects such as running water, complementing the bright colors of autumn leaves, rapids and water surfaces with a flowing blur effect. Ideally, to capture this blur, you need to expose the image for at least half a second, but even with the lowest ISO and the smallest aperture, the ambient light usually available requires a faster shutter speed. In this case, it is recommended to use the ND filter to block the light from reaching the camera sensor, thus increasing the exposure time. However, be careful not to add too much exposure as this may overexpose the highlights in the water.

When using the ND filter, I like to shoot with a surround exposure. Taking multiple images at different shutter speeds can have different effects on the water. The longer the shutter speed, the quieter the water becomes. A slower shutter speed will blur the action. The overall mood and influence of the picture becomes more dynamic. Define the texture in the water and create a pattern that guides the eye through the image. The ND filter can use a longer or shorter shutter speed, which is a creative option that defines the effect of an image based on the mood to be created.

Because the ND filter is very dark, it is difficult to see what is being shot once the filter is placed on the lens. It is recommended to compose the image and check whether all the contents are clear before placing the ND filter. This is especially true when using ND filters with smaller apertions or stacked filters. For example, an ND filter can even be used in combination with a polarizer: a polarizer can reduce glare and reflection, while an ND filter can increase exposure time.

When buying ND filters, make sure they stack with other filters. Note that when stacking two or more filters, wide-angle lenses will fade out. The trick to avoid this is to zoom in on a closer shot or buy a larger filter with a booster ring. This can be very effective, especially in the middle of the day when the light is too strong to be exposed for a long time. By combining these filters, you can change the atmosphere of the image. A longer shutter speed allows the photographer to use a larger aperture (such as / 16) to capture the entire image and make it clear, while still using a longer exposure.

Like the polarizers of the past few years, the medium density filter has gotten better. The ND filters vary in strength, which means they block the number of apertures that enter the camera. A few years ago, the darkest ND available was a notch 10. At the time, the results were very inconsistent with the typical 10-point filter. If the shutter speed is too long, magenta will appear throughout the image. ND filters have come a long way in the past few years, especially in terms of avoiding color slants. ND filters can now be up to 20, which is very good. This allows us to use longer exposure times and thus more movement and mood in the image. Even in the brightest sunlight, the 20-nd filter can achieve very long shutter speeds.

When using ND filter, please determine the correct exposure amount. It is difficult to get the accurate exposure amount without trial and error. I recommend using a smartphone app that calculates the amount of grey density exposure to determine exactly how long it will take based on the filter being used. When taking longer exposures, a sturdy tripod and ball head must also be used to prevent the camera itself from moving.

Gradient medium grey density filter

Another filter for autumn colors is the gradient grey density filter, which compensates for uneven light sources. Usually in landscape images, the sky is brighter than the ground; If you measure at the ground, the sky will be overexposed. Or, if you measure light against the sky, the ground will be underexposed. For example, when shooting sunrise and sunset, the sky is bright, but the foreground is in shadow. The design of the gradient Grey density filter allows us to balance the light in the sky with the light in the landscape so that everything is properly exposed.

The gradient grey density filter design is dark at the top and transparent at the bottom. Like standard ND, the gradient grey density filter has a variety of advantages. The best choice for a particular scene depends on the number of apertures required to balance the sky and the foreground, so having some different intensity on hand is ideal. The trick to using them is to put the scales in the right place. The wrong placement can cause the image to look unnatural. You want to make the transition of the filter as natural as possible to align with the lights in the scene.

In addition to the intensity or density of these filters, there are "hard" and "soft" gradients, which refer to how abruptly the filter transitions from light to dark. The transitions between exposures are not always clearly defined when evaluating a scene, and hard gradients create distinct lines. In this case, use a gentle gradient to make the transition smoother. Conversely, hard gradients work best when a sudden transition from light to shadow occurs in a scene, such as the horizon of an ocean.

To properly align the gradient grey density filter, use the Depth of field preview button when viewing through the viewfinder, or use live view on the camera's LCD. Move the filter up or down and rotate to position it just right for fine tuning. The easiest way is to hold the filter in front of the lens by hand. Rectangular filters (such as LEE's 100mm system) are a good choice because they can be held in hand, or better yet, placed in a filter holder and rotated for precise alignment.

Warm and cool color filters

When photographing autumn colors, it is important to capture the atmosphere of the season. When it comes to autumn colors, warm colors like red, yellow and orange come to mind. You want to photograph the whole spectrum of warm tones, while keeping the natural tones unchanged. You can usually use a warm color filter, which adds a subtle warmth to the overall color of the image but doesn't look natural. It improves the shading details that a neutral polarizer might lose. The warm colors of the image will be more prominent in the colder colors. This contrast in tone adds more visual impact and color balance. For autumn colors, the leaves and cooler tones in the image become more apparent.

It is recommended to buy quality filters

When buying filters, quality matters. I suggest you buy quality filters. Why put inferior filters in front of the lens? The performance of the lens and filter depends on the quality of the filter, as not all filters are created equal.

For example, you might use a polarizer a lot, so it doesn't make sense to choose an inexpensive polarizer that might reduce the image quality. For example, Singh-Ray LB ColorCombo, which is a combination of heating polarizer and color enhancer. I can use the polarizer when I want to get the best warm colors in an image, especially red. It works by preserving neutral colors and saturating only bright colors.

When selecting an ND filter, it is important to ensure that it does not have any color bias. Formatt-Hitech's Blender ND filter USES transitions that are very gradual across the length of the filter, rather than just in the middle, and are ideal for situations where light transitions are subtle. For gradient medium density filters, I recommend buying a large rectangular filter that is comfortable to hold and large enough to cover all lenses.

06 epilogue

Try to capture a story in the fall, aluminum photo prints and capture fall colors that photographers look forward to all year round. Using a filter to capture the changing seasons means something special. Even with advances in post-production digital photography and processing, it is essential to use optical filters to capture autumn's brilliant colors when photographing autumn landscapes.

If you have a more satisfactory filter autumn photography works, please share in the discussion section! Stay tuned and share your photography tips every day! Looking forward to traveling with you on the photography road!