Perfect Autumn Lake Picture

[JwPhotography]

Hay Ladies and Gents,

I was after a little help form those with a little more knowledge then me. I'm after that perfect Autumn picture with the colours of the trees reflecting in the lake....

I'm after some general information about setting the camera up for shots where things are reflecting in the lake... best time of day to take the picture, do I need ND filters? What hight do I take the shot from, would it be better with a ladder? I haven't really shot reflections before and am not much of a landscape photographer, so was hoping for some help to make my life easier.

I understand the hardest part is finding the right place to take it form and I have a few in mind in Kent, England.

Thank you

James Wilkins

[Manfred M]

Hay Ladies and Gents,

I was after a little help form those with a little more knowledge then me. I'm after that perfect Autumn picture with the colours of the trees reflecting in the lake....

I'm after some general information about setting the camera up for shots where things are reflecting in the lake... best time of day to take the picture, do I need ND filters? What hight do I take the shot from, would it be better with a ladder? I haven't really shot reflections before and am not much of a landscape photographer, so was hoping for some help to make my life easier.

I understand the hardest part is finding the right place to take it form and I have a few in mind in Kent, England.

Thank you

James Wilkins

Nicely said, there is no "right answer" to your question. It really depends on what you want the image to look like.

Landscape photography is often viewed as being best taken during the "golden hour" period, i.e. just before sunrise or just before sunset when the light is soft an diffuse and the shadows are soft. For landscape work, I prefer using a tripod with a ball head so that I can find tune the shot in the viewfinder. When not shooting wide angle, I prefer to use a polarizing filter to kill the reflections on leaves.

I just got back from a fall leaf trip about a week ago and have a number of lake and tree shots on my Flickr site. These give ISO, aperture and shutter speeds that I used. There are also a couple of local fall shots done this past weekednd. There are some shots from two years ago as well (we were in South Asia last year and didn't do any leaf photography).

Often a good place to start is to try to replicate what someone else has done, so here are some fall shot albums on my Flickr site.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/524694...57658401671969

https://www.flickr.com/photos/524694...57659698917630

https://www.flickr.com/photos/524694...57636231371096

https://www.flickr.com/photos/524694...57636101554634