Essential Tips for Woodland Autumn Photography
How to improve your woodland photography composition.
I have just returned today from the Scottish Highlands. Autumn is really coming to an end there, with the recent storms having blown the remaining golden foliage of the birch and its few oaks away. However, I was struck by the fact that the South of England, near to home, is now at its absolute best. This was the reason I had headed back, as experience has taught me that driving 600 miles north or south in the UK can make a difference of almost 3 weeks in the stages of the year’s seasons. This obviously extends the opportunities to shoot these seasons if you play your cards right.
Back to the Chiltern Hills for a touch of Autumn near my home.
So, I thought I would post a short tutorial to help others make the most of those autumn woodland colours.
Often, I just get asked: What settings do you use? This is a valid question and a good way to get someone on the right path to success.
Personally, I begin all woodland sessions with a consistent technical baseline. I’ll often shoot at ISO 400 to keep shutter speeds manageable; with modern sensors, there’s virtually no visible difference between ISO 100 and ISO 400. If your shutter speeds are too slow, you will suffer distracting blur in the foliage as the leaves move in the wind. Keeping the ISO higher helps prevent this.
My aperture starting point is typically f/16 at a focal length of 50 mm on a full-frame camera. For my lens, this is the sweet spot between lens sharpness and depth of field. This allows me to maximise the depth of field and ensure the image is sharp from front to back. If I move to a wider focal length like 24 mm, I may ease the aperture to f/13 (There may be creative reasons to go against this rule, which I explore more fully in my eBook.) If you shot using a smaller cropped sensor, you may want ot adjust this with a slightly wider aperture.
Pick your subject and make it clear what it is. Here it is the small oak in front of the larger pine trees.
I then normally have my colour balance set to Daylight rather than Auto White Balance.
Image stabilisation is switched off (if left on, this can cause vibration when on a tripod), and a tripod is exclusively used with a 2-second in-camera timer or cable/remote release to avoid any vibration. In the woods, I’m frequently working at shutter speeds of around one second.
Woodland photography generally does not work in harsh light. I nearly always shoot on overcast days with no direct light. However, if I know the conditions are going to be bright directional sunlight, I do shoot early in the morning when the sun is low on the horizon and there is a more diffuse dynamic light. This often produces the best images, which give just a hint of directional light on woodland subjects, without the subject being overpowered by harsh highlights and contrast.
I expand on this in greater depth inside my eBook, "Order in the Chaos,” where the book also explains how you can predict these lighting conditions and prepare to shoot in the woodland the day before, giving you time to be ready and waiting for those amazing shots.
1. Start with a Clear Subject and Focal Point
In woodland, chaos is everywhere: branches, layers, bright distractions competing for attention. I never press the shutter until I’ve identified a clear anchor: a dominant trunk catching the light, a sweep of colour, a curve of branch that leads the eye. Without hierarchy, the image feels unsettled. Order begins with intent. Normally, I am looking for two or three points to lead the viewer’s eye to.
This image has three elements. The main foreground tree subject, the path and then a lighter area at end of the path to draw the viewers eye towards.
A good tip is to walk back to where you first noticed the scene. There is normally a reason you first moved off the path to look at something, and that is normally the point you first diverted from your route.
Keep looking behind you, because the light is markedly different in both directions and it is the fall of light on the main subject that makes the subject stand out in a shot. You need to be a Tail End Charlie on patrol in the jungle and keep looking behind you as you explore.
2. Exclude the Sky for Cleaner Frames
Because the sky is in mist/fog, this image is able to utilise the sky more, rather than becoming a distraction, which would have been the case otherwise.
Almost without exception, I work hard to keep the sky out of woodland compositions. A blown or bright sky pulls the eye away from the story and destroys atmosphere. I’ll raise the camera position on the tripod, and possibly tilt the lens subtly downward. The woods should feel immersive, not broken by white voids. Some photographers can get away with white sky, but even then, it is quite diffuse. The only time I allow white sky into the scene is if it is foggy. This fog allows the subject to be more dominant in the first place and the areas of foggy sky are much more subtle and diffuse, resulting in less attention from the viewer’s eye. This is why woodland photographers love fog, as it gives more leeway with the sky and allows a wider field of view that would have otherwise been a no-go area in normal overcast conditions.
I do sometimes leave a bit of sky in a corner/edge of the image if the light is part of the image. An example is when there is diffuse golden light streaming into the edge of the woodland, and so is part of the story being told. I ensure the viewer sees this as golden light and not a blown-out white highlight.
3. Balance the Composition
This image works because the trees have been separated into three individual elements. This was done my moving the camera left and right.
Once a subject is chosen, I look to distribute visual weight. Branches, negative space, repeating shapes, or even the “odd one out.” This forms the architecture of woodland order. Most importantly, I physically shift left or right to align trunks, remove tension, or create subtle symmetry. The tiniest movement can transform chaos into flow. It is often essential to keep the tree trunks as separate entities. This is all done by a slight movement of the camera from side to side. An example of a good composition could be getting three trees near to each other but spaced apart from one another. This is known as the rule of odds and this, along with other concepts, are expanded on fully in my eBook.
4. Work with Natural Light on the Subject
Woodland light is fleeting and directional; a shaft of low sun igniting golden beech leaves is far more powerful than flat open light. I am often seeking soft, warm highlights in a tree trunk or genatal translucent yellow backlights on foliage. The golden rule here is that this light needs to fall on where you want the viewer to look. If it falls away from your intended subject, the viewer is going to be confused. In my ebook, I explore how light sculpts the scene more than any camera technique. These types of shots often come with the sun rising above the horizon on a clear evening or morning. However, your time in the woods will be limited in these weather conditions as the light will quickly become too overpowering to continue shooting effectively.
5. Maximise Depth of Field Thoughtfully
This image needed to be focus stacked due to the foreground being inches from the front of the lens.
At f/16 on a full-frame camera, I can hold woodland depth of focus well at mid focal lengths, but when foreground elements sit inches from the front of the lens - ferns, roots, leaf litter - I’ll often take a second frame at around f/8 focused on those near foreground elements and blend/focus stack later. (If you can’t do this type of editing, crank the aperture up to f22!) The goal is quiet clarity, not clinical perfection, just enough coherence for the eye to rest on the foreground and then more to the rear. Another option is to make sure just the foreground and subject are in focus and worry less about the far distance sharpness, as the human eye expects sharpness to diminish in the distance.
6. Seek Atmospheric Conditions – Fog & Mist
Fog and mist simplify everything. It erases background distraction, softens contrast and reveals depth through separation. It allows a brighter, sharper and more colourful subject to contrast and pop against the more muted, misty background. Hence, the subject pops out in the image. If there is mist in the forecast, that is the morning I cancel everything and commit. This type of weather is the holy grail of the woodland photographer. 80% of my woodland “keepers” are shot in fog and mist. It is also possible to predict these conditions with some careful planning. (See my eBook for more details on how to do this planning.)
7. Embrace Rain for Saturation and Isolation
Rain is just as powerful sometimes as the fog and mist. The forest becomes rich, saturated, reflective. The rain gives a diffuse light that can set the image apart from a normal overcast day. Colours deepen. Backgrounds soften with falling water, giving a painterly blur. I’ll wipe the lens between frames if needed. I use cheap microfiber cloths from Tesco for this. I also take a large umbrella and set up with the tripod/camera, holding the umbrella above the setup. The mood more than compensates. Woodland is rarely more alive than in the rain. You will, however, need a polariser filter for this almost without exception. It is an amazing feeling standing there with the patter of rain on the umbrella, dry and waiting to take the shot.
8. Use a Polariser to Control Glare
The foreground leaves have been darkened using a polariser filter, which prevents glare on the floor, distracting from the main subject.
A polariser is indispensable when leaves are wet. The reflective sheen is often the biggest killer of woodland colour. More importantly, it is the reflections on leaves that can distract from the main subject. Reflections on the fallen forest floor leaves will draw your eye to the floor and not the tree you had made your intended subject. Turning the polariser to cut glare restores depth and purity, revealing tones and textures otherwise lost. I’ve made an in-depth video on this and it changes everything when used with intent. Just remember to turn the filter so that a slight bit of glare enters and creates a more 3D feel to the scene, especially on tree trunks.
9. Stabilise with a Tripod
With shutter speeds often around one second, a tripod is essential, not just for sharpness, but for compositional precision. It forces intentionality. Micro-adjustments become possible. I disable image stabilisation on the camera. I trigger the shot with a timer or cable release, and treat the frame like a still life. Hunt for the composition using the camera off the tripod and then transfer to the tripod when ready to shoot and refine the image at this point. Patrol your viewfinder borders and ensure that you have no distractions, such as sky highlights you don’t want, or stray out-of-focus branches.
10. Shoot in Manual White Balance and Edit RAW with Intent
I set white balance to Daylight for consistency. It preserves a natural woodland warmth and allows me to judge colour more accurately on location. Shooting RAW is non-negotiable for me; autumn colour needs faithful data. In post, I refine mood rather than rescue errors, enhancements, not fixes. Remember that RAW files are duller than JPEGs because they retain the fuller dynamic range. Therefore, in post-production, you will need to put some contrast back into the image. I often use DxO Nik Collection 8 colour EFEX for this and use the pro or tonal contrast tools there. ( If interested, you can get a 15% discount using FASFOX as a promo code on the following link https://tidd.ly/42bLV8M )
As I explore in more depth in my ebook Order in the Chaos, woodland photography is about imposing rhythm and structure on nature without sterilising its character. Right now, at peak colour in the South of England, this is the moment to step into the woods and experiment. Give it a go!