If You go down to the woods
With trees cloaked in fresh, green leaves, make sure you pack a polarizing filter in your kit bag to boost colour saturation and head down to your local woodland
9 BOOST SPRING GREENS
Polarizing filters are used to boost colour saturation but are mostly known for the effect they have on blue skies – turning them into a deep, rich hue. A lot of photographers aren’t aware that they are just as useful when photographing woodland. Polarizers cut through surface glare, thus restoring natural colour situation as foliage generally has quite a sheen. Remove this sheen and the colour becomes pure and saturated. Spring woodland then looks incredibly fresh and vibrant. Polarizers are easy to use – simply rotate the filter while looking through the viewfinder. You’ll see reflections and glare come and go, and colour saturation increasing and decreasing accordingly. There’s no one correct setting; set the polarization by eye to a level which you find most pleasing.
PARKS AND GARDENS 10
The natural chaos of woodland can be difficult to photograph, so a good alternative, if you want to shoot trees and flowers, is to head to a local park or a formal garden. With parks and gardens, a lot of the hard compositional work has already been done for you by landscape gardeners, and the formal planting means that they have a sense of order, which is missing from natural woods and forests. You shouldn’t have too much trouble finding compositions, as well-designed gardens will have specifically planned viewpoints. The other advantage of visiting formal gardens is that you will discover plants and flowers that would be difficult – or even impossible – to find in the wild and often some stunning species to photograph.
Polarizing filters are mostly known for the effect they have on blue skies, but they are just as useful for vibrant woodland
BLUEBELLS! 11
Who doesn’t love bluebells? Thick carpets of luminescent blue and an intoxicating aroma combine to make bluebell woods magical places. Bluebells generally reach their peak at the end of April or beginning of May. If you live close enough, it’s worth making repeated visits to ensure that you get your timing right. Woodland can be chaotic, so woods with rows of straight trunks, such as beech, are ideal, as is a clean forest floor. Look for structured groups of trunks or a natural focal point, such as a low canopy or a path.
Longer focal lengths allow you to pick out patterns and groups of trees, and enhance the impression of a thick carpet of flowers. A polarizer is essential, boosting the natural vibrancy of the bluebells and leaves. Bluebell woods are suited to the diffused light of an overcast day, or try shooting towards the sun at the beginning or end of the day, with shadows racing towards the camera.
Stick to the paths and don’t walk into the middle of the bluebells to frame a shot – trampled bluebells take many years to recover. Review each shot for signs of movement in the leaves. Be prepared to increase your ISO and reshoot, as blurred leaves in a key part of the scene can be distracting.
12 Exposure bracketing
Woodland lighting can be very contrasty, with deep shadows and bright highlights breaking through the canopy on a sunny day. Ideally, you should shoot early or late in the day, when the sun is low, or on a cloudy day, when the light is more diffused. If this isn’t possible, you can mitigate the effects of extreme contrast by shooting shots at different exposures and then merging these in postprocessing into a single frame that contains the full range of tones. With the wide tonal range in sunlit woodland, set a series of five shots at one-stop increments. You can adjust exposures manually, but using the auto bracketing feature makes the process simpler. Some Nikons, such as the D850, have a dedicated bracketing button (BKT), with others, it’s a menu setting. The Z-series allows you to assign a custom button for this.