A Guide to Fall Foliage Photography

Capturing the best colors of autumn

September 16, 2024

Are you excited to take some beautiful fall foliage photos this season? We are too! Here at Explore Fall, photography and photo reports are critical to what we do. The vibrant scenes of multicolored fall foliage are something we look forward to every year, simply because it’s such an enjoyable and beautiful time to be outside. Photography is an accessible way for just about anybody to enjoy and share that beauty. We’ve compiled this list of tips from the professional photographer on our team to help you prepare for capturing those colorful scenes and enhance your fall photos this year.

How to Find Fall Colors

To start, you need to find the fall colors. Our interconnected world of the internet offers some incredible resources to find good locations. Depending on your level, here are our recommendations for how to do fall foliage research for photography:

Beginner

Just heading out with your phone or simple camera and hoping for a good time? Start your photography trip with these resources:

1. Use the Explore Fall interactive map to see when colors in your planned area will change. Zoom into the map to find detailed foliage predictions for any location in the Lower 48.
2. Google Maps (App or online) to plan your trip. Start by searching for “National forests,” “Scenic drives,” or “Overlooks” to identify good spots to go leaf peeping. A quick tip: you can download areas of maps in the Google Maps app so you have access even on those back mountain roads.
3. AllTrails App. Check out local hiking trails in your area including details about trail descriptions, recent photos, and ratings provided by users just like you. Most popular trails pages will have photos that you can check to see if the fall colors are good along the trail.

Intermediate

Have a nice camera and feel comfortable with reading detailed maps? These will help you find original photo frames with the best colors around.

1. Check local foliage maps offered by state tourism offices (such as Wisconsin) and their recommended locations. Locals will always have the best knowledge of a region, so starting with the state sites will set you on those “back road” locations.
2. Check the drought conditions in your target area. Stressed trees lead to dull colors, and may not look as nice in your photos. Check the latest stress outlook by Explore Fall or the latest US Drought monitor.
3. 3D maps such as Google Maps. Be sure to use the “Terrain” and “Satellite” layers to help line up creative shots. You can even create a custom, personal map with dozens of saved locations. Spend a couple hours (or more) browsing these maps in the areas you’re interested in and explore the roads, pop up photos, and parks.

Advanced

Including the resources mentioned above, here are some resources to help pinpoint your fall frames.

1. The Copernicus EO interactive browser. Check recent and historical from the Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8-9 earth observation satellites. Use this to identify exactly where (which valleys, roads, etc) have vibrant colors. Also use this imagery to check where and when colors changed in the past.
2. The PhotoPills app. Line up sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset, the milky way, and other celestial objects to plan your frames. The app offers options for calculating the exact frame aspect ratio for your camera and lens setup, and alignment with terrain features.
3. Google Earth pro (it’s free!). Download this for your personal computer, and import the most recent Explore Fall KMZ file. This allows you to interact with a 3D version of Google Earth complete with a fall foliage overlay and plenty of photo and route-finding features.

We recommend against using social media to find spots to photograph. The most rewarding photography, and oftentimes the highest quality shots, come from areas that you’ve researched, discovered, or explored for yourself. Plus, it’s quite rewarding to know that you have an original frame that few other people have shot. Popular locations that are touted on social media are usually crowded, meaning you’re standing next to dozens of other photographers and waiting for people to move out of your shot. Crowds like this can be harmful to the natural environment too. There are many stories of over-visited locations that are covered in graffiti, trash, and other severe types of damage. Enjoy the peaceful vibrance of the autumn season, and go somewhere new!

Conditions: Weather and Light

The weather plays a significant role in the ease and quality of capturing fall photos. Contrary to what you might think, a clear sky on a crisp day is actually not the best time to capture colorful landscape photos. Bright, direct sunlight will add a lot of contrast to your photos and wash out most of the color. Cloudy skies with soft, dispersed light is better. A little bit of rain or fog is the best. Moisture and soft light on leaves bring out color very well and may add a soft, dreamy feel to your shots.

If you’re up for it, pick a rainy or cloudy day for your photography. If you have to shoot in bright sunlight, use a CPL filter (you can either screw it onto your lens or buy a clip-on for your phone). For an even dreamier look in your photos, combine a cloudy day with an ND filter to shoot long exposures. With the right filter (look for a variable ND or something >20 stops), you can shoot exposures longer than 30 seconds which will smooth out the clouds and any spotty light.

The time of day also matters. Although bright daylight is the easiest time to be out and about, it’s well worth the effort to shoot during “golden hour.” This is the hour (or so) when the sun is low in the sky in both the morning and evening.

Golden hour in the morning is immediately after sunrise, and golden hour in the evening is the hour before sunset. Want to avoid crowds at a popular spot? It’s often worth losing a little bit of sleep early in the morning to get out for the good light.

Other Photography Options

Don’t have an expensive DSLR or mirrorless digital camera setup? No worries. Modern smartphones have pretty remarkable photo capabilities. Everything we mentioned above still applies. The time of day and weather matter, and capturing the right location with a plan is critical.

Engaging fall color photography can be achieved in plenty of other ways too. Modern digital photography is of course a wonderful medium, but here are a few other options to consider.

1. Film photography. This is greatly increasing in popularity as we speak, and especially over the past decade. It’s fun to pick up an old film camera at a thrift shop or off of Ebay that’s a little rough around the edges, throw some 35mm film in it (We like the Portra 400 color film for fall colors), and go through the process of framing, shooting, and developing those shots.
2. Drone photography. Small drones are very accessible and relatively cheap. Most have decent cameras (>24 megapixels) and area easy to fly. An angle from the sky opens up tons of new frames. Some of our favorite fall color shots of all tome come from simple consumer-grade drones such as the DJI Mini 2. But, be careful where and when you fly. DO NOT fly in national parks (Including the Blue Ridge Parkway) and wilderness areas. Make sure you know the local restrictions for flight altitude and airspace regulations, even if you’re just flying recreationally.