step by step Fruits of the Forest

how to set up your eos camera, lens and composition for the best results

01 TELEPHOTO ZOOM LENS

For most landscapes, we’d recommend a wide-angle lens to fit as much into the frame as possible, but for this woodland scene we want to concentrate on the flowers on the forest floor, and compress perspective for a shot full of colour.

04 WARM WHITE BALANCE

Your camera has a clever white balance system to ensure the colour temperature of your photos are spot on, but to emphasize the warm summer feel in this shot, try using the Daylight WB setting. Shoot in Raw and you can tweak in ACR.

02 FOCUSING

Set Single Shooting drive mode and One Shot AF, and autofocus with a single point on the key area of the scene – the pool of sunshine lighting up the flowers here. If the camera is set on a tripod, it’s better to turn off image stabilization, if your lens has it.

05 GET DOWN LOW!

To get the best viewpoint so the woodland flowers appear dense and packed, and with as much colour as possible, get down low to the ground. A tripod not only ensures shake-free shots, but enables more accurate compositions, too.

03 MID-RANGE APERTURE

Set a middling aperture of around f/8 to capture enough depth of field for the central area of the scene to be sharp, while the near and far extremes drop into soft focus (see over the page for more on how aperture affects depth of field).

06 NO TRIPOD? UP YOUR ISO!

While it’s best to use a tripod, you can also shoot woodland scenes handheld. Up the ISO, if necessary, to ensure your shutter speed at least matches your focal length – 1/100 sec for 100mm, for example – to overcome any camera shake issues.