Autumn gives photographer's lots of reasons to get out amongst amazing colour before the onset of winter. The light softens, the colours ignite, and the landscape transforms daily. Whether you're shooting the poplar-lined lanes of Arrowtown NZ, the lakeside colour at McClaren Falls NZ or the maple forests of New England USA, the principles are the same: be attentive, be adaptable, and on the lookout for Autumn compositions that capture the imagination.
AUTUMN PHOTOGRAPHY - TEN TIPS that will help you come home with images you're genuinely proud of.
1. Chase Golden Hour — Morning and Evening
Autumn's golden hour is unlike any other season. The sun sits lower on the horizon, stretching warm light across the landscape for longer, and the combination of that glow with red, amber, and copper foliage produces something almost otherworldly. Make sunrise and sunset your anchor points for any shooting day.
When you're in that warm golden light, expose for the highlights and let the shadows hold their depth. Autumn colour overexposed loses all its saturation — use exposure compensation of around –⅓ to –⅔ stop, if needed, to protect the richness of your gold and red tones. Shoot in RAW.
2. Embrace Overcast and Stormy Weather
Waiting for perfect sunshine means missing some of the season's most atmospheric images. Overcast days deliver soft, directionless light that is ideal for forest floors, close-up work, and intimate scenes. Colours are richer and more saturated without harsh direct light washing them out, and shadows virtually disappear, revealing detail in the darkest corners of the frame.
Bright sunshine can actually wash out colour and create unwanted glare on leaves. A strong wind following bright sunshine can also drop all those leaves overnight, leaving you with bare branches the following morning. Don't wait for the perfect blue-sky day - it may arrive at exactly the wrong moment.
If you have a weather-protected camera, stormy conditions open up a whole additional range of images: dramatic skies, bending trees, and the kind of moody, saturated light that overcast days deliver so well.
3. Seek Out Reflections
Still water in autumn acts as a mirror for some of the most vivid colour in the landscape. Find a calm pond, lake, or river and photograph the reflections of autumn foliage on the surface. The mirrored image adds depth and symmetry to your composition, effectively doubling the visual impact of the colour above.
Timing and conditions are everything. Still mornings before any wind rises are optimal. Get low - to maximise the reflection in the frame. A tripod that extends low, or simply getting prone, transforms the quality of a reflection composition.
A circular polarising filter is a powerful tool here. Rotate it to control the amount of glare you remove, finding the balance between eliminating unwanted surface reflections and enhancing the colour reflections you want.
4. Go Close - Macro and Detail Work
Grand vistas are compelling, but don't walk past the smaller world at your feet. Individual leaves on the forest floor, the texture of bark after rain, fallen leaves on still water, a mushroom pushing through the leaf litter — these intimate subjects can produce photographs as powerful as any wide landscape.
Use a macro lens or a short telephoto (90–105mm is excellent) with a wide aperture to isolate your subject against soft background colour. The shallow depth of field turns those blurred autumn tones behind your subject into beautiful abstract washes of amber and green. Shoot from ground level whenever you can - the change of perspective transforms familiar subjects into something genuinely fresh.
5. Shoot After Rain
After rain, head straight out. Wet leaves, dark bark, and glistening stone have a richness and depth that dry conditions rarely match. Surfaces that look dull and matte when dry become luminous when wet. Colours deepen and saturate. The world becomes more vivid immediately after rainfall - and it doesn't last long.
Look for still conditions immediately after rain clears. Rivers and waterfalls run more powerfully after significant rainfall, creating ideal conditions for long-exposure photography. A long exposure in these conditions - silky water, wet dark rocks, lush surroundings - can be genuinely beautiful.
1. Chase Golden Hour — Morning and Evening
Autumn's golden hour is unlike any other season. The sun sits lower on the horizon, stretching warm light across the landscape for longer, and the combination of that glow with red, amber, and copper foliage produces something almost otherworldly. Make sunrise and sunset your anchor points for any shooting day.
When you're in that warm golden light, expose for the highlights and let the shadows hold their depth. Autumn colour overexposed loses all its saturation — use exposure compensation of around –⅓ to –⅔ stop, if needed, to protect the richness of your gold and red tones. Shoot in RAW.
2. Embrace Overcast and Stormy Weather
Waiting for perfect sunshine means missing some of the season's most atmospheric images. Overcast days deliver soft, directionless light that is ideal for forest floors, close-up work, and intimate scenes. Colours are richer and more saturated without harsh direct light washing them out, and shadows virtually disappear, revealing detail in the darkest corners of the frame.
Bright sunshine can actually wash out colour and create unwanted glare on leaves. A strong wind following bright sunshine can also drop all those leaves overnight, leaving you with bare branches the following morning. Don't wait for the perfect blue-sky day - it may arrive at exactly the wrong moment.
If you have a weather-protected camera, stormy conditions open up a whole additional range of images: dramatic skies, bending trees, and the kind of moody, saturated light that overcast days deliver so well.
3. Seek Out Reflections
Still water in autumn acts as a mirror for some of the most vivid colour in the landscape. Find a calm pond, lake, or river and photograph the reflections of autumn foliage on the surface. The mirrored image adds depth and symmetry to your composition, effectively doubling the visual impact of the colour above.
Timing and conditions are everything. Still mornings before any wind rises are optimal. Get low - to maximise the reflection in the frame. A tripod that extends low, or simply getting prone, transforms the quality of a reflection composition.
A circular polarising filter is a powerful tool here. Rotate it to control the amount of glare you remove, finding the balance between eliminating unwanted surface reflections and enhancing the colour reflections you want.
4. Go Close - Macro and Detail Work
Grand vistas are compelling, but don't walk past the smaller world at your feet. Individual leaves on the forest floor, the texture of bark after rain, fallen leaves on still water, a mushroom pushing through the leaf litter — these intimate subjects can produce photographs as powerful as any wide landscape.
Use a macro lens or a short telephoto (90–105mm is excellent) with a wide aperture to isolate your subject against soft background colour. The shallow depth of field turns those blurred autumn tones behind your subject into beautiful abstract washes of amber and green. Shoot from ground level whenever you can - the change of perspective transforms familiar subjects into something genuinely fresh.
5. Shoot After Rain
After rain, head straight out. Wet leaves, dark bark, and glistening stone have a richness and depth that dry conditions rarely match. Surfaces that look dull and matte when dry become luminous when wet. Colours deepen and saturate. The world becomes more vivid immediately after rainfall - and it doesn't last long.
Look for still conditions immediately after rain clears. Rivers and waterfalls run more powerfully after significant rainfall, creating ideal conditions for long-exposure photography. A long exposure in these conditions - silky water, wet dark rocks, lush surroundings - can be genuinely beautiful.
6. Set Your Alarm for Frost and Mist
Some of the most fleeting - and most beautiful - autumn light exists only for minutes in the early morning. Frost transforms individual leaves into crystalline sculptures. Pale mist drifts over rivers and lowland paddocks. A quality of light appears that is impossible to replicate at any other time of day. If the overnight forecast is cold and clear, set the alarm.
As temperatures drop through late April and May (NZ), autumn mornings frequently produce mist and fog in valleys and over water. These atmospheric conditions add an enchanting, mysterious quality to your images. Look for subjects that recede into the mist, creating natural depth and layering in the composition. The cooler air can also produce mist over bodies of water at sunrise, giving the light a magical quality.
7. Use Leading Lines and Explore Different Perspectives
Autumn offers some of the year's best opportunities to work with leading lines. Tree-lined avenues, rural roads flanked by turning poplars, pathways through parks scattered with leaves - all of these guide the viewer's eye through the frame and create a powerful sense of depth and perspective.
A telephoto lens compresses the layered planes of colour beautifully, stacking the trees and creating a density of colour that wider lenses can't achieve. For a very different result, try hiking to a viewpoint that gives you a panorama over a canopy of colour - a bird's-eye view of the tree tops produces something completely different from being within that canopy.
When you find yourself beneath that canopy, try pointing your camera upward. The kaleidoscope of colour against the sky is one of autumn's satisfying compositions.
8. Boost and Protect Your Colour
Autumn is fundamentally about colour. A few simple techniques make a dramatic difference to how your camera renders those tones.
First, set your white balance. Using Cloudy or Shade rather than Auto adds warmth and stops your camera neutralising the golden tones you're specifically trying to capture. Auto white balance is designed to give neutral results - which is precisely what you don't want in autumn.
If your camera offers Picture Modes, switching to Vivid visibly increases colour saturation in your JPEG files. Shoot RAW and JPEG together if you want a reference image - the vivid JPEG gives you a great visual reference, while the RAW file retains full recovery latitude in post-processing for when highlights need pulling back or shadow detail needs lifting.
A circular polarising filter remains one of the most effective tools in the autumn photographer's kit. It increases saturation in both leaves and sky, reduces glare, and is particularly powerful after rain or near water.
Some of the most fleeting - and most beautiful - autumn light exists only for minutes in the early morning. Frost transforms individual leaves into crystalline sculptures. Pale mist drifts over rivers and lowland paddocks. A quality of light appears that is impossible to replicate at any other time of day. If the overnight forecast is cold and clear, set the alarm.
As temperatures drop through late April and May (NZ), autumn mornings frequently produce mist and fog in valleys and over water. These atmospheric conditions add an enchanting, mysterious quality to your images. Look for subjects that recede into the mist, creating natural depth and layering in the composition. The cooler air can also produce mist over bodies of water at sunrise, giving the light a magical quality.
7. Use Leading Lines and Explore Different Perspectives
Autumn offers some of the year's best opportunities to work with leading lines. Tree-lined avenues, rural roads flanked by turning poplars, pathways through parks scattered with leaves - all of these guide the viewer's eye through the frame and create a powerful sense of depth and perspective.
A telephoto lens compresses the layered planes of colour beautifully, stacking the trees and creating a density of colour that wider lenses can't achieve. For a very different result, try hiking to a viewpoint that gives you a panorama over a canopy of colour - a bird's-eye view of the tree tops produces something completely different from being within that canopy.
When you find yourself beneath that canopy, try pointing your camera upward. The kaleidoscope of colour against the sky is one of autumn's satisfying compositions.
8. Boost and Protect Your Colour
Autumn is fundamentally about colour. A few simple techniques make a dramatic difference to how your camera renders those tones.
First, set your white balance. Using Cloudy or Shade rather than Auto adds warmth and stops your camera neutralising the golden tones you're specifically trying to capture. Auto white balance is designed to give neutral results - which is precisely what you don't want in autumn.
If your camera offers Picture Modes, switching to Vivid visibly increases colour saturation in your JPEG files. Shoot RAW and JPEG together if you want a reference image - the vivid JPEG gives you a great visual reference, while the RAW file retains full recovery latitude in post-processing for when highlights need pulling back or shadow detail needs lifting.
A circular polarising filter remains one of the most effective tools in the autumn photographer's kit. It increases saturation in both leaves and sky, reduces glare, and is particularly powerful after rain or near water.
9. Time the Peak and Explore New Ground
Colour doesn't arrive everywhere at once - it moves through the landscape over weeks. Research when foliage peaks in the specific areas you plan to shoot, and track conditions in the days before you travel. Arriving a week too late means bare branches; a week too early means green leaves. The peak window for any given location can be as short as a few days.
Autumn is also the perfect time to explore roads and locations you don't know. Some of the strongest autumn images come from places discovered by simply driving down an unfamiliar road and stopping when something catches your eye. The season's extraordinary light makes familiar landscapes look fresh - and genuinely unknown locations look extraordinary.
10. Photograph People in the Season
Autumn isn't only a landscape subject. The season offers extraordinary backdrops for portraits and candid moments. The warm, soft light of autumn complements skin tones beautifully, and the colour-rich environment provides natural backdrops that need no enhancement.
Use a wide aperture to blur the background into soft washes of colour, and expose for the person's face rather than the background — you may need to add a stop or more of positive exposure compensation when the background is very bright.
For portraits, dress choices matter. Earthy tones harmonise with the environment and create a unified, immersive feel; contrasting colours — a deep blue coat against orange leaves, for instance — create striking, graphic images. Candid moments carry the warmth and nostalgia of the season in a way that posed portraits rarely can. Children leaping into leaf piles, friends walking through falling leaves, families gathered together.
Colour doesn't arrive everywhere at once - it moves through the landscape over weeks. Research when foliage peaks in the specific areas you plan to shoot, and track conditions in the days before you travel. Arriving a week too late means bare branches; a week too early means green leaves. The peak window for any given location can be as short as a few days.
Autumn is also the perfect time to explore roads and locations you don't know. Some of the strongest autumn images come from places discovered by simply driving down an unfamiliar road and stopping when something catches your eye. The season's extraordinary light makes familiar landscapes look fresh - and genuinely unknown locations look extraordinary.
10. Photograph People in the Season
Autumn isn't only a landscape subject. The season offers extraordinary backdrops for portraits and candid moments. The warm, soft light of autumn complements skin tones beautifully, and the colour-rich environment provides natural backdrops that need no enhancement.
Use a wide aperture to blur the background into soft washes of colour, and expose for the person's face rather than the background — you may need to add a stop or more of positive exposure compensation when the background is very bright.
For portraits, dress choices matter. Earthy tones harmonise with the environment and create a unified, immersive feel; contrasting colours — a deep blue coat against orange leaves, for instance — create striking, graphic images. Candid moments carry the warmth and nostalgia of the season in a way that posed portraits rarely can. Children leaping into leaf piles, friends walking through falling leaves, families gathered together.
SECRET HEART McClaren Falls Bay of Plenty
70mm, f/11, 2.5sec, ISO 100
70mm, f/11, 2.5sec, ISO 100
CAMERA SETTINGS for Autumn Photography
Getting the right settings dialled in before you're standing in perfect light saves the shots that matter most. Here's a practical guide:
Landscapes and wide scenes:
Aperture: f/8–f/11 for maximum depth of field and sharpness across the frame.
Getting the right settings dialled in before you're standing in perfect light saves the shots that matter most. Here's a practical guide:
Landscapes and wide scenes:
Aperture: f/8–f/11 for maximum depth of field and sharpness across the frame.
- ISO: 100–200 to keep colours clean and noise-free.
- Shutter speed: whatever the light demands, use a tripod for anything below 1/60 sec.
- White balance: set to "Cloudy" or "Shade" to warm up the golden tones rather than letting auto WB neutralise them.
- Aperture: f/11–f/16 to extend exposure time without overexposing
- ISO: 100
- Shutter speed: 0.5 sec - 2 seconds for silky water movement; use a tripod and remote shutter release.
- Consider a circular polarizing (CPL) lens filter, and a 3-stop or 6-stop ND filter if conditions are too bright for a long exposure.
- Aperture: f/2.8–f/5.6 for a shallow depth of field that isolates your subject against soft background colour.
- ISO: 200–400 as needed.
- Shutter speed: fast enough to freeze any movement from breeze; 1/400 sec or above should be safe.
- A macro or short telephoto lens (90–105mm) gives beautiful compression and subject separation.
- Aperture: f/8–f/11 to keep both near and far elements sharp
- Use a CPL filter to control reflections — rotate it to find the sweet spot between removing glare and enhancing the colour reflection you want
- Shoot from low to the water surface; a tripod that extends low, or simply getting prone, makes a significant difference to the quality of reflection compositions
- Expose for the highlights in the warm light, not the shadows - autumn colour overexposed loses all its saturation
- Use exposure compensation of -1/3 to -2/3 stop to protect the richness of gold and red tones
- Shoot in RAW to preserve recovery latitude in post-processing
READ THE LIGHT AND ADAPT
Building your shooting strategy around one ideal set of conditions means going home disappointed more often than not. Every weather condition has something to offer in autumn - the key is recognising it.
On overcast days, soft directionless light is a gift for close-up and intimate work. On bright, clear days, pay close attention to how light moves through the landscape and watch for shafts of sunlight through the canopy and sunstar opportunities. After rain, head out immediately for the richness of wet surfaces. And on cold, clear mornings, rise early - frost and mist create conditions that last only minutes and produce images unlike anything else the season can offer.
Stay attentive. Stay adaptable. And you’ll capture great Autumn images.
Building your shooting strategy around one ideal set of conditions means going home disappointed more often than not. Every weather condition has something to offer in autumn - the key is recognising it.
On overcast days, soft directionless light is a gift for close-up and intimate work. On bright, clear days, pay close attention to how light moves through the landscape and watch for shafts of sunlight through the canopy and sunstar opportunities. After rain, head out immediately for the richness of wet surfaces. And on cold, clear mornings, rise early - frost and mist create conditions that last only minutes and produce images unlike anything else the season can offer.
Stay attentive. Stay adaptable. And you’ll capture great Autumn images.
If you are interested in prints of any of the Landscape Photography images on my site, please browse my Photography Gallery, and check the images in my Online Print Store, or get in touch to purchase images from this post.
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