Getting ready to go outside and capture the fall colours this year? Then you’ll need a good lens. There really is no single type of lens that trumps all others when it comes to shooting fall foliage. It all depends on your shooting style and what you’re planning to shoot – vast landscapes or macro close-ups or something in between – to get the best images your colourful subject has to offer.
Here’s a bit of common sense wisdom about your choice of lens for this annual panorama, and why you might want to consider packing more than just one.
Wide-angle prime
When you’re aiming to capture a broad swath of a forested hillside, for example, it often makes sense to shoot with a wide-angle prime – anything from 21mm to 35mm will usually get the job done right, but this is a fairly subjective choice and some shooters prefer to go ultra-wide.
If you’ve got your sights set on a straightforward composition, anything less than 14mm could begin to produce visibly distracting distortions (unless you want to go for something decidedly more abstract and radical with an ultra-wide-angle fisheye lens). On the other hand, a typical 50mm standard prime might not be up to the task of encompassing the grandeur of the scene you envision in its entirety.
Regardless of the focal length, prime lenses are known for their exceptional sharpness, but they also offer the added advantage of producing beautiful bokeh. Whether you’re focusing on the foreground or the background, you can use a wide-angle prime to determine your desired depth of field and give your chosen slice of the autumn landscape an extra layer of dimensionality.
Telephoto
Despite the minor sacrifices you might be making in terms of sharpness with a telephoto lens, this type of glass offers some serious advantages too. Most obviously, you’ve got a lot more versatility at your fingertips – your lens does the legwork for you, so you don’t have to spend time and energy getting physically closer to your subject.
But one of the best benefits, depending on the lens’s focal-length range, is your ability to leverage the powerful compression effects that a telephoto delivers and isolate a particular segment of the shot to give it more prominence within your composition. Otherwise, a flamboyant canopy of autumn foliage shot against a sunlight-dappled background can leave the viewer’s eye searching for something to anchor it.
Macro lens
Let’s face it: when we’re out in the field, taking it all in and scouting a shot, we sometimes don’t see the forest for the trees. And when we’re looking up and scanning the horizon, we can easily overlook what’s directly underfoot. Some of the most beautiful autumn-foliage shots can be found in the leaf litter that carpets the forest floor or in the florid fungus sprouting from a damp stump of a fallen tree. And for these kinds of close-up shots, only a macro lens will do.
Alternatively, a close-up lens offers an affordable alternative. Available in a wide variety of filter-thread diameters to slip snugly onto the front of your lens of choice, these handy accessories function like a magnifying glass to bring minuscule details to life and deliver reliable macro results without using an actual macro lens.
Bonus tip
Regardless of the lens or lenses you decide to take on your outdoor autumn excursion, there’s a simple way to give these vibrant fall colours an extra dollop of punch by using a lens filter. A circular polarizer filter, for one, will increase saturation and reduce glare on the leaves. If a brook or waterfall appears in your composition, consider using a neutral density filter, so you can shoot at slower shutter speeds and give running water a misty dreamlike texture.
Cover Image Credit: Woodrow Walden