I have made no secret of it in the past: I am a tree lover! I don’t mean I go around hugging trees. I am not total weird. I just love trees and photographing them in beautiful scenes, whether it’s a lone tree against a blue sky in a landscape, a silhouetted tree at sunset or rows of trees covered in colorful leaves in autumn.
But if you know how to take those frame-filling photos of rows of trees in your local park, it is, to quote Liam Neeson Takenrequires a very specific set of skills!
Allow me to explain in these simple steps, where I’ll show you how to improve your composition skills to create colorful frame-filling photos of trees – no matter how old your equipment is!
Here’s a quick video of the scene I was filming so you can see what I was working with:
1. Lens choice
It’s easy to think you’re one wide angle lensto try to include every part of the tree, from the top to the trunk. However, with a wide lens you get a lot of empty space in the frame – and probably with tall trees ‘leaning back’ because you’ve been standing too close to take a photo.
No, the trick to taking these landscape photos is to use a long telephoto focal length. I used my trusty one Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, because it is the ideal telephoto zoom on my full frame Canon EOS 5D Mark IV DSLR.
The 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM may be 14 years old now, but it’s still a great and fast telephoto zoom lens. It’s reliable and sharp as a tack.
But instead of standing close and shooting at 70mm, you’ll want to stand further back and zoom in to shoot closer to the 200mm end for a better composition full of beautiful branches, thick tree trunks and the ground that is hopefully covered with beautiful leaves.
Autumn Tree Landscapes by Peter Travers (Image credit: Future)
2. Change your perspective
So why would you want one? telephoto lens? A telephoto focal length compresses perspective, meaning it brings elements in your scene closer together. In layman’s terms, this means that your frame will be more densely filled with colors, and the rows of trees will appear closer together for better composition.
(Image credit: Future)
3. Adjust the aperture for greater depth of field
You can also easily make the mistake of going on autopilot with the aperture when using fast 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom lenses, and shooting wide open at f/2.8. But I want a good depth of field, so I used a small aperture between f/11 and f/16. These are also often the optimal apertures of a lens for sharpness from the center to the corners.
At lower light levels at this time of year you will find that when shooting at f/16 and ISO100 you get a naturally slow shutter speed, around 1/15 to 1/40 sec. This had the added bonus of blurring people walking on paths in your shot.
Also, use a tripod to ensure that your shots are a) straight and b) sharp regardless of your shutter speed, and so that c) you can fine-tune your framing. But don’t mount your camera on the tripod head as it won’t be secure with a heavy telephoto zoom at the front and will lean forward at best.
Most larger 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses have a collar into which you can screw the base plate for your tripod head instead.
(Image credit: Future)
Live view of Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (Image credit: Future)
4. Work on your compositions
Composition is the most important element for these photos. For starters, vertical compositions tend to work better when they include more colorful trees. If you are blessed with trees full of colorful leaves that line both sides of the path in your park, you may want to take a symmetrical shot, with the path running down the middle.
I like to frame these photos so that a large tree with colorful leaves is most prominent and in the frame on one side, cut off at the top and sides, and without too much empty space in the foreground. Meanwhile, in the park, the path runs downwards from the top to the bottom of the frame, guiding the eye to the photo. Focus on about a third of the scene for good sharpness.
Also be sure to use your camera’s electronic level so that your trees are straight and your horizon is flat. Because I’m getting all nerdy in my op-ed: the electronic level on Canon DSLRs like my EOS 5D Mark IV is much greater and easier to use on screen, compared to smaller levels on mirrorless Canon cameras.
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV larger digital level (Image credit: Future)
Waiting for people to pass your scene (Image credit: Future)
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV and 70-200mm autumn landscapes (Image credit: Future)
5. Clear views
It was then a matter of waiting to get a clear photo when the majority of the walkers and runners had disappeared from view in the large park in the center of Bath, England, that I had chosen for these autumn photos.
You may prefer that your fall treeline photos have one or two people walking along the path, to add a sense of scale or to add a little life to the shots. It’s a personal preference.
Comparison between cloudy and then sunny shots (Image credit: Future)
6. Which light is the best?
You don’t necessarily need bright sunlight for these shots. Although I waited for the sun to emerge from behind the clouds to illuminate the trees, I found that the strong sunshine created too many shadows for my photos. So cloudy conditions are fine, almost better, as the softer daylight will illuminate the scene evenly, without unwanted dark shadows.
You also don’t have to worry about the sky in your shots, because your composition will be tight with the frame filled with fall colors.
To emphasize the autumn hues, a quick tip is to simply use the Cloudy or Shade white balance preset on your camera to warm up your images.
Autumn tree landscapes by Peter Travers (Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
7. Warm up your fall photos
When editing my RAW images, I boost exposure, shadows and highlights, and adjust Dehaze Adobe Camera Raw. I also adjusted the color temperature (white balance) slider to subtly warm up the images a bit more.
In Photoshop CC I also removed the extraneous distractions such as trash cans, man-made poles, and other people. Instead of fussing with the Clone Stamp tool or Healing Brush, I found that the quickest and best way was to use the Object Selection tool for a quick selection, and then use Generative Fill AI to do the dirty work.
You may be interested in the best Canon camerastogether with the best Canon lenses for DSLRs and the best Canon RF lenses for mirrorless.
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