Capture Great Photographs of Fall Leaves: Macro Photography Tips
Capture Great Photographs of Fall Leaves: Macro Photography Tips
As winter is just around the corner, we still have a week or so to capture some fall colored leaves. Most photographers will say fall is their favorite time of year to shoot. You can’t beat the colors that explode in the landscapes. For the macro photographer, close-ups of colorful leaves are everywhere. I head to my local parks that offer a variety of environments for me the find these treasured shots. These images can be shot using your digital SLR and macro lenses or your point and shoot cameras.
I like to search the swamps and small streams in the wooded areas at Stony Creek Metro Park. The leaves may be floating a distance from the edges of the swamp or stream, so a longer telephoto macro lens in the 180mm range works best to reach out farther. I like to shoot in the higher aperture f-stop range (f/22 to f/32) to bring it all in focus.
Floating Cottonwoods
Swirling Swamp Water
After I’m done in the swamps I go into the upland woods and shoot leaves on the ground. With these shots your working distance to the subject is much closer, so any focal length macro lens (60mm to 180mm) will work fine. With all the nice fine details in these leaves I will shoot them in the higher f/stop range (f/22 to f/32) to make sure I capture all the details.
Rain Soaked Large Toothed Aspens
Frosty Oaks
If you would like to be creative and set-up your own art work, leaves can be combine with other subjects or have fun making your own arrangements. As with the other images, use your higher f/stops for full depth of field.
Maple On Birch Tree
Here is a nice arrangement of colorful Aspen leaves, and I added the water drops with an eye dropper.
Shooting fall leaves is one of the best times to be out in nature, so hurry as you only have a short time left.
Guest blogger Mike Moats is an award winning pro nature photographer that specializes in macro photography. See more about Mike and his images at, www.tinylandscapes.com
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Love the leaves with the water droplets on them!
Nice work! Although I prefer natural water drops
this has been my favorite subject for the past 2 months and I have TONS of fall leaf photos from this year and years past. I love fall colors, and it goes great with my love of all things macro too 
Beautiful! Can you use any lens to shoot this way? I have a 50mm, 18-70mm, and 75-300mm. Thanks! I want to try something with what I already have.
These are so great! Thank you for sharing these fantastic tips and info, and for sharing posting these incredible photos!