Capturing early fall colors with a super telephoto

With fall officially upon us, I’ve been planning for sometime now to get out with my camera and capture the warm fall colors around me. But this year, things have been going a little slower, due to warmer weather. While some leaves have changed (or have started to change), others are still as green as can be.

Still, I was determined. With a Tamron 50-400mm f/4.5-6.3 lens by my side, I went out to the lakeshore and tried to capture the gorgeous colors I could find.

Why carry a super telephoto?

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A lens like the Tamron 50-400mm really is versatile in terms of what it can capture. It’s great for capturing wider street scenes at 50mm, but it’s also great for getting close to your subject without having to move your feet. This often creates what’s commonly referred to as lens compression, helping to blur the background and really making your subject pop.

The great thing about the Tamron 50-400mm is that I can really get close to my subjects and capture those details. The lens’ 1:2 macro reproduction ratio is unheard of with a lens like this. It makes it easy to capture my favorite up-close nature elements without having to put on a dedicated macro lens.

When I was out, this lens made it easy to capture a lighthouse from afar, but also zoom in close to nature’s finest details.

Can’t find any fall colors yet?

When I went to Pere Marquette Beach in Muskegon, MI, there weren’t too many fall colors yet. But there was an amazing sunset taking place, that provided a warm feel to my photos.

I decided to accentuate these colors more by switching to the Shade white balance preset. This really boosted the yellows and oranges in my scene, and made it look like the perfect fall day … even though there was green grass and leaves everywhere around me.

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You can also play around with the HSL panel in your favorite editing software. For me, I used Lightroom Classic and changed the Hue panel to make my greens more yellow. This won’t get rid of the greens, but it’ll subdue them and make them look very much like fall. From there, I used the Luminance panel to lighten up my yellows and oranges, for a more realistic feel and to make those colors really shine. Just take a look at this before and after:

Look for that “feeling”

Need help finding your scene? When I go out in nature, I go slow. I look for that thing that speaks to me — that feeling. For me, the light that the sun was giving off worked wonders, as it provided a gorgeous backdrop to anything that was in the foreground.

But no matter where you are, enjoy fall for what it is. As photographers, we can experience some breathtaking views with nature around us. And fall is my favorite time to do that.