Last week I told you about things that had to be taken into account when going out to capture autumn photographs. Today I reveal the settings and manual adjustments that I recommend (and that I personally use) to achieve a correct autumn photography. Again, today’s article demonstrates again how easy manual mode is, as difficult as it may seem, once you use these settings and start experimenting with them, you won’t want to know anything about automatic mode again.
Camera Settings for Fall Photography
I can’t give you the exact settings because they will vary depending on the scene, the time of day, the amount of light, whether it’s sunny or cloudy. You have to try (and learn). Yes, I can propose the settings that I would use as a starting point to shoot that first or second test photo, from which I would modify these settings in one direction or another.
Autumn is a season of low light, or at least, it is less intense than summer for example. If we add to this the ideal moment in which we take an autumn photo, which would be early in the morning or late in the afternoon, we are presented with a situation that requires adjustments similar to the following.
In this example, as in real life, I use the manual mode on the camera’s mode dial, the one with the letter “M”. This allows me complete flexibility in deciding how I want to configure each of the three main settings that affect the light.
1. Settings for shooting a general autumn landscape
Do I photograph a landscape/general scene? Do I want all elements within the frame to be in sharp focus? If the answer is yes, here are the settings I would personally start from:
Aperture: f/11
This allows me to achieve a large depth of field, or in other words, a homogeneous level of sharpness and focus for all the elements of the frame: background, trees, leaves on the ground, river, mountains, everything will appear correctly focused.
Be careful, an aperture like f/11 will darken my photo. The higher the f/ value, the more underexposed (dark) the photo is. I will compensate for this with the following shutter speed and ISO settings that we will see next.
Shutter speed: 1/20
I start from this shooting speed to compensate for the little light that the camera captures as a consequence of the previous point. Remember that the slower the shutter speed, the more light we will get. So I start shooting at 1/20. That the photo is too underexposed? Lower that speed a bit, type 1/10 for example, and so I go.
Be careful, the lower the shutter speed, the more “blurry” the photo will end up being, because the camera will capture the movements of my hand holding it and shooting the photo. This, the only way to mitigate it is by using a good tripod (a really good one, with enough stability to withstand the characteristic autumn wind. Here are some recommendations).
a remote shutter release wouldn’t hurt either.
If I don’t have a tripod, I want to prevent the photo from being shaken, and I am having an underexposed photo, I have a solution: I will increase the shutter speed, even beyond 1/20. I could try 1/30; 1/60; or 1/200 if necessary. That with such high speeds the photo would come out very dark? Nothing happens, we go for the ISO sensitivity.
ISO: 100
My DSLR camera is set to ISO 100 by default. It’s the value I usually work with by default, and it’s also the setting I usually touch the least. I don’t touch it unless it’s absolutely essential, as in this case.
Suppose I take the first photo with ISO 100, aperture and shutter speed as I mentioned before. Now, let’s imagine that the photo is underexposed. Suppose I am not able to lower the shutter speed because in that case the photo would be blurred.
What I do?
Raise the ISO sensitivity beyond 100. I’ll try with ISO 200, ISO 400, and so on until I get to the point where the photo is exposed enough. Remember that the higher the ISO value, the more light the camera captures, but also more noise (grains) appears in the photo, so it’s about finding a balance. To a bad one, I always prefer to have a well-exposed photo, albeit with noise, rather than a photo that is clean of noise but totally underexposed.
2. Settings to portray an isolated autumn element
If what I am looking for is to portray autumn through some of its characteristic elements: a fig or seasonal fruit, a chestnut, a fallen leaf from a tree, or if I want to photograph the portrait of a person set in an autumn environment, here You have the settings that I would use:
Aperture: f/1.4
I mean I would use the widest aperture (smallest f/ value) possible that the lens would allow. In my case I have a 50mm f/1.4 lens (which I call the King of Lenses) and this one does allow me to reach that aperture. Other lenses less generous in light will offer you an aperture f/4 or f/3.5 as the minimum possible value. It’s okay, use it. The point is to use an f/ value that is as low as possible. Why? With this, the camera is capable of capturing huge amounts of light, so by the way we get rid of having to compensate for the lack of light with the rest of the settings.
What’s more, with an f/1.4 or similar aperture we could even have to reduce the light by playing with the shutter speed or using some other factor.
A large aperture (small f/value) also allows you to isolate your subject or object, bring it into very precise and sharp focus, and leave the entire background completely out of focus, giving your subject full prominence.
Shutter speed: 1/500
As I said in the aperture section, using such a low f/ value makes the camera suddenly capture huge amounts of light. I therefore need a relatively “fast” shutter speed to compensate for that excess light and provide some balance. It will depend on whether it is a very sunny day, or if it is in the afternoon, and a lot of factors that interfere with the settings, but 1/500 seems like a good starting point.
By the way, have you seen the video in which I explain very clearly how shutter speed works in photography?
ISO: 100
In this situation, I almost certainly won’t have to use ISO sensitivity. The only thing I would want it for would be to capture more light, which I already have thanks to having used a large aperture (f/1.4), so I have ISO stays at 100.
As you can see, the manual mode opens up a whole world of creative possibilities that you can capture with your camera. The only way to harness the full creative potential of autumn is to use manual mode. I have shown you two examples, but they are just a starting point. Practice them if you can, but mostly experiment and explore different settings. You may be pleasantly surprised at your own results.
Thank you for reading this far. I hope the article has been useful to you. If so, be sure to spread the word on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. It will make me happy 😉