Nature Photography How To

Ask any accomplished nature photographer to name their favorite season of the year, and they’ll likely say autumn. That’s because beautiful fall foliage paints the landscape with eye-popping orange and yellow tones.

But here’s the catch: The images you capture may not look as impressive as you expect, if you’re making one or more common mistakes. In the video below from one of our favorite outdoor photographers, you’ll learn how to avoid several pitfalls and capture stunning autumn photos.

Romanian pro Toma Bonciu specializes in travel, adventure, and landscape photography, and he’s a really great instructor. In this episode he identifies seven image-killing mistakes, and explains how fix them in less tan eight minutes.

Mistake #1 is what Bonciu refers to as “Red Channel Overexposure.” He explains that when there’s powerful light, particularly at sunrise or sunset, the red channel tends to overexpose, resulting in unrealistic images. He demonstrates how to easily correct this problem by setting your camera’s histogram to display color channels instead of grays.

Another error is a familiar one common to many types of landscape photography; namely not being at the right place at the right time.  With regard to fall photos, this has do with why prevailing weather conditions can affect how color tones of leaves appear in your images.

Bonciu also discusses why you should avoid hiking to higher elevations than necessary when shooting in the mountains, the proper gear for the specific task at hand, the importance of doing proper research when shooting in unfamiliar locations, and much more.

Bonciu illustrates his advice with beautiful images that should inspire you to get out in the field and use his advice to capture epic fall photos.

You can find more great landscape photography tips on Bonciu’s instructional YouTube channel, so pay a visit after watching this video and subscribe.

On a related topic, we encourage you to check out the tutorial we post not long ago, with three simple editing tips for autumn photos with maximum impact.