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Here are 16 photography projects for you to tick off your photo list this Autumn. Think we've missed one? Add your suggestions in the comments. You can also find tips related to each subject by clicking on the headings. 

 

1. Autumn Wide-Angle Landscapes 

When the landscape is full of burnt oranges, warms yellows and other Autumnal shades, take advantage of this warm colour palette and capture some autumn-themed vistas with your wide-angle lens.

  2. Focus On A Single Tree This Autumn

When you've captured your shots of forests and national parks, focus your attention on one tree, shooting under the canopy or try using a lonely tree in a wide, sweeping landscape shot of a crop field. 

 

3. How To Photograph Abstracts

Instead of focusing on scenes as a whole, look for areas where you can strip your image back to shape, patterns and form which will give you an image that's still very much Autumn themed but it's different from the norm. Why not go against the rule that everything has to be sharp and create an Autumnal drag landscape? The warm shades of leaves which turn into long lines of colour help create striking pieces that are perfect for wall art. 

 

4. Top Tips On Photographing Reflections

Reflections are something you can shoot all year round but as bright colours and bold shapes make the most interesting reflections, autumn's the perfect season to try this technique.

 

  5. 10 Top Tips For Taking Better Photos Of Trees

When in the woods with your camera kit look upwards and capture a shot of the trees with a wide-angle lens. When you do, you'll produce a shot that looks as if the trunks of the trees are almost falling out of the image due to the effect wide-angle lens have on verticals and the trees will seem a lot taller, too. This technique can produce great results at all times of the year but when you have the orange tones set against a blue sky it's particularly eye-catching. 

You could also apply this technique in towns and cities where parks can be surrounded by tall modern structures that contrast well against the trees. 

 

6. Add An Interesting Sky

Use slower shutter speeds to turn the movement of the clouds to create leading lines to guide the eye through the photograph or how about waiting for a colourful sunset to compose your Autumn scene against? 

7. Play With Back Light

One way to exaggerate the colours of Autumn is with backlit leaves. Plus, it'll really make the intricate pattern of veins stand out and focus the viewer's attention. You can also shoot some Autumn themed outdoor portraits with backlight to make your subject 'pop' from the frame. 

  8. How To Photograph Fallen Leaves

Make the most of the fallen leaves starting to decorate the land and use them in your landscape shots. If you're working by water where leaves are decorating the land surrounding it or are floating along the surface of the water as it flows downstream, experiment with longer exposure times to blur the water's movement.

 

  9. Top Tips On Photographing Birds

Some birds begin to migrate at this time of year which means you may have new species visiting your garden.

 

10. Capture Photos of Dew Drops

As evening temperatures begin to fall the sight of morning dew decorating grass and other plants is something that will become a regular occurrence. As dew can add extra interest to your macro garden shots, it's well worth getting up early and taking some shots of morning dew. 

 

11. Shoot Sunbeams On Autumn Days

When you mix early morning fog with the rising sun you get a recipe for strong beams of sunlight appearing in woodland areas. These beams of light bursting through trees make an early morning rise from your bed covers well worth it.

 

12. Still Life Photography Can Be Autumn-Themed

Pumpkins, leaves, conkers and berries can all be used in still life set-ups when you're looking for something to keep you occupied on a rainy day. Play around with compositions, props and backgrounds to see what interesting still life creations you can create. 

 

 

13. Top Tips On Using Lens Flare Creatively 

 You can use flare in your shots to add a little romanticism, mystery and warmth to your autumn shots.

  14. Top Frost Photography Tips

The cooler evening temperatures and clear nights mean frost will soon be making an appearance once again and it's a great photographic subject for both landscape and macro photography fans. 

 

15. How To Use Paths And Roads In Your Photos

Paths, lines and long roads will always be excellent composition tools but when combined with lines of Autumnal trees your landscapes suddenly become even better. 

  16. Top Halloween Photography Tips 

As well as landscapes and close-up shots of leaves Autumn brings Halloween.  It's a perfect time to shoot some portraits and capture the other fun details of this event. 

   

You've read the technique now share your related photos for the chance to win prizes: Daily Forum Competition  

 

There seems to be a current trend for larger, fast prime lenses, and this Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art lens absolutely follows that brief. It is large, it is moderately heavy, and it is also the only f/1.4 AF lens of this focal length available today. This makes it look rather attractive and we might expect beautiful out of focus backgrounds for portraiture in particular. It is a full frame DG lens, and also one of Sigma's state-of-the-art Art range, aspiring to the highest standards. So let's couple it up with the 42MP Sony A7R III body and see whether or not it delivers all of its promise.

 

Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art Handling and Features

The lens is bulky but the actual weight does not feel too onerous. The figures vary slightly with lens mount.

 

Sony FE 111.7mm x 137.5mm

1420g quoted

1425g measured with tripod foot

1546g measured with tripod foot and hood

L Mount 111.7mm x 135.5mm 1430g quoted

 

The lens is solidly made and feels great to handle. There is a large provided round lens hood that bayonets smoothly into place. There is a locking catch. Within the bayonet mount for the hood is a standard 105mm filter thread, quite an expensive option if a few filters need to be purchased. The hood is very deep, and should be efficient at protecting the front element.

 

 

As we take our tour of the lens, next up is the well ribbed and utterly smooth electronic focusing ring. This Sony version supports all the usual options, selected via the camera menus. AF is driven by two HLA motors (High Response Linear Actuators) and is certainly virtually silent, very fast and very accurate. Focusing is down to 1.1m (43.4"), for a maximum magnification of 1:6.9. This is closer than a traditional manual focus 135mm lens, although not approaching macro distances.

There are two AFL buttons provided, and just three switches. The usual AF/MF switch is joined by a de-click switch for the aperture ring (useful in particular for videographers) and also an aperture ring lock switch. This last option prevents the A setting from being accidentally nudged off its setting, or indeed engaged accidentally if we wish to use the excellent aperture ring instead.

Optical construction is 17 elements in 13 groups, including 4 FLD and 2 Aspherical. FLD elements are fluorite-like and approach the qualities of the very expensive fluorite elements and bring the corrections they allow into an affordable form. The diaphragm comprises 13 blades, and as we look into the front element we can clearly see that the result is an impressively rounded aperture. This bodes well for bokeh.

 

 

Dust and splash resistance is almost a requirement and rounds out an excellent specification. The front element also resists contamination by dust, grease and moisture and should be easier to keep clear. The tripod foot rotates, useful for changing from landscape to portrait orientation when on a tripod, and in any event helps to keep the body of the lens well clear of any tripod mount. It also helps to keep the lens steady when hand held, improving the grip.

There is no inbuilt IS, so the camera is relied upon and Sony's SteadyShot handles this very well indeed. Of course, no amount of IS can reduce subject movement, so the wide aperture can be very useful when shooting close wildlife. Handling is hazard free. It does not take long to find the best grip for what is quite a chunky lens, but it is not excessively heavy and that helps considerably. The lens is great to handle, but is the performance great to match? Let's find out.

 

 

Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art Performance

Central sharpness is excellent at f/1.4 and f/2, outstanding from f/2.8 to f/5.6, excellent at f/8 and still very good at f/11 and f/16. The edges are excellent from f/1.4 to f/8, rising to outstanding at f/4, and still very good at f/11 and f/16. The performance is also very even right across the frame.

 

Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art MTF Charts Previous Next

How to read our MTF charts

The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges.

For this review, the lens was tested on a Sony A7R III using Imatest. Want to know more about how we review lenses?

 

CA is approaching zero at the centre, and at the edges are held to a creditable half a pixel or so. It is highly unlikely that colour fringing will be noticed in even the most demanding subjects.

Distortion measures +0.23% pincushion, so we really might as well say totally rectilinear. This is great for architectural subjects in particular.

 

Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art Chromatic Aberration Charts Previous Next

How to read our CA charts

Chromatic aberration (CA) is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software.

Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more.

For this review, the lens was tested on a Sony A7R III using Imatest.

 

Bokeh is the smoothness of the out of focus areas in an image and the general gradation of such areas. This is one of the things we would be looking for in this lens, being both a short telephoto and a very fast (bright) maximum aperture. It excels, and the bokeh is just sublime, especially at wider apertures. Lovely.

Flare is almost totally eliminated, and even with bright light sources in frame it is all but impossible to generate any artefacts.

Vignetting is minimal, with some of the lowest figures seen in any lens.

 

Aperture Vignetting f/1.4 -0.8 f/2 -0.8 f/2.8 -0.4 f/4 -0.4 f/5.6 -0.4 f8 -0.4 f/11 -0.4 f/16 -0.4

 

Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art Sample Photos Previous Next

 

Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art Aperture range Previous Next

You can view additional images in the Equipment Database, where you can add your own reviews, photos and product ratings.

 

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Value For Money

The [AMUK]Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art|Sigma+135mm+f/1.4+DG+Art[/AMUK] lens is priced at £1649.00 and is available in Sony FE and L mount versions.

As it is the only 135mm f/1.4 AF lens available at the time of writing, it stands alone in terms of VFM. However, we can compare its cost with the increasingly large number of top quality 135mm f/1.8 lenses:

• [AMUK]Canon RF 135mm f/1.8L IS USM|Canon+RF+135mm+f/1.8L+IS+USM[/AMUK], £2399
• [AMUK]Nikkor Z 135mm f/1.8 S Plena|Nikkor+Z+135mm+f/1.8+S+Plena[/AMUK], £2299
• [AMUK]Samyang AF 135mm f/1.8 FE|Samyang+AF+135mm+f/1.8+FE[/AMUK], £794
• [AMUK]Sigma 135mm f/1.8 DG Art|Sigma+135mm+f/1.8+DG+Art[/AMUK], £1149
• [AMUK]Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 GM|Sony+FE+135mm+f/1.8+GM[/AMUK], £1599
• [AMUK]Viltrox 135mm f/1.8 Z|Viltrox+135mm+f/1.8+Z[/AMUK], £829

The new Sigma is pitched at an impressively low cost and seems excellent VFM.

 

 

Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art Verdict

The current trend seems to be for large, fast lenses with high quality optics, and the new Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art lens fulfills that brief perfectly. Although in the past I have felt that 135mm was a little too long for a portrait lens, when coupled with the current wider apertures it does deliver a new look of its own. We can add to that suitability for close range sports, landscape and wedding/social photography.

It has the quality, has a character of its own and is priced very attractively. It's a great lens at a great price and is Highly Recommended.

 

Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art Pros

• Excellent to outstanding sharpness
• Central CA virtually banished
• Excellent flare resistance
• Minimal vignetting
• Very well made
• Virtually rectilinear
• Dust and splash resistant
• Sublimely smooth bokeh
• Slick handling
• Excellent pricing

Sigma 135mm f/1.4 DG Art Cons

• Heavy and bulky

 

[REVIEW_FOOTER]R_features=4.5|R_handling=4.5|R_performance=5|R_value=4.5|R_overall=4.5|A_level=4.5|A_text=Highly Recommended – Beautifully made, sublime bokeh and outstanding sharpness|E_id=8027[/REVIEW_FOOTER]

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Hollyland has consistently been at the forefront of wireless audio capture, and their latest flagship, the LARK MAX 2, represents a push to consolidate nearly every desirable modern audio feature into a single comprehensive system. Are all these features important, or is the result overly complicated?

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The latest winner of our popular daily photography theme which takes place in our forums have been chosen and congratulations go to mitchellhatpeg (Day 23 - Mist / Fog).

 

Daily Theme Runners-Up

If you didn't win this time, keep uploading your images to the daily competition forum for another chance to win! If you're new to the Daily Theme, you can find out more about it in the Daily Theme Q&A. 

Well done to our latest runners-up, too, whose images you can take a look at below.

  Day 24

Market Stalls

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Day 25

Motion

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Day 26

Good Weather

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  Day 27

Mountain Landscapes

[COMMENT_IMG]portfolio|324638|3850783[/COMMENT_IMG]

 

Day 28

Forests

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Day 29

Arboretum

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Day 30

Autumn Close-Ups

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You’ll find the Daily Themes, along with other great photo competitions, over in our Forum. Take a look to see the latest daily photo contests. Open to all levels of photographer, you’re sure to find a photography competition to enter. Why not share details of competitions with our community? Join the camaraderie and upload an image to our Gallery.

    1. Be Patient  Photographing lively animals like cats is all about patience – try not to get frustrated if your animal won't do what you want. Remember, it is at heart a wild animal and they won't always do what you want them to do. You might want to sit around with your camera without taking photos a few times too so they get used to seeing the camera and won't attack it or run away when you take it out of its bag.   2. Be Ready The most difficult thing about photographing animals, no matter how large or small, is that they move at the most inopportune moments. Setting your camera to continuous shooting mode may help you capture a good shot as they run off in a different direction. DSLRs feature quick continuous shooting modes but don't worry if you're not a DSLR owner as many compacts also have a continuous shooting mode built-in. Compact camera owners can also switch to sport/action mode to increase your chances of getting a blur-free shot.    

 

3. Ask For Assistance 

If you are looking to capture some action or movement shots, get someone else to play with your cat, distracting them so you can get some shots of them swiping and jumping without them going for your camera. Try getting your cat to run by throwing a toy or treat, and snap it in full run. Quicker shutter speeds or switching to sports/action mode will help you freeze your cat's movement. To further enhance the feeling of speed, pan your camera, following your cat as they run. This will, hopefully, keep your cat sharp while the background is thrown nicely out of focus. If you don't want to have a go at panning, pre-focus on a spot where you know your cat will run through and hit the shutter button when they come into frame.

 

4. Candids & Close-Ups

Another technique, to create a more wild effect, is to watch your cat outside for a while and snap more candid style shots of it hunting or climbing on a wall. Try shooting side-on so you can get a shot just as it leaps into action.

If you want some close-up shots of your feline friend, try dangling a toy above it to get it to look up from the ground. You could also try getting your cat to paw at you to give the impression that it's leaping. Dangling a toy will also encourage your cat to keep still and keep its attention focused, to stop it from wandering off. For less action-based shots, why not try capturing it lying down or stretching. Some really lovely shots can be taken while they're resting/sleeping, for example.

 

You've read the technique now share your related photos for the chance to win prizes: Daily Forum Competition  

The photography industry is littered with the corpses of once-mighty brands that dominated their markets for decades before making single, catastrophic decisions that destroyed everything they had built. The worst part isn't that these companies failed. It's that in most cases, they had the technology, resources, and market position to dominate the future they instead chose to ignore.

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I believe great photography is a result of great lighting. As someone who has spent a lot of time traveling and shooting in a variety of conditions, light has always been a top priority. Small portable LED lights started to become popular around 5–6 years ago, when dozens of brands began making a variety of lights in different shapes and sizes. I’ve bought many, keen to try different options out and find the best solutions for when I travel to shoot on location. Recently, I came across a brand that, in a relatively short amount of time, has carved out its own niche and positioned itself at a whole new level in the world of portable lighting for photography and video. They’re called Harlowe.

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Macro lenses rarely change the way you shoot, but this one pushes past life-size and keeps autofocus. If you want cleaner close-ups, steadier handheld results, and more control over depth, take a look at this option.

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A single backdrop and a few lights can look either plain or powerful depending on how you set them up. The way you control shadows, spill, and separation is what decides whether the final image feels flat or dimensional.

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The Panasonic Lumix S 100-500mm f/5-7.1 O.I.S. lens gives you reach that’s rare in a package this compact. Wildlife, sports, and travel shooters often need long focal lengths, but carrying massive lenses adds weight and hassle. This lens aims to fix that by stretching all the way to 500mm while staying small enough to fit comfortably in a standard kit bag.

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Photoshop’s beta just added third-party AI models to Generative Fill, and it changes how you edit. You can stack multiple instructions in one prompt, keep context from the original photo, and steer results without micromanaging masks or selections.

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Submit Your Best Bokeh Images

Welcome to a new Critique The Community! October is here which for many conjures up memories of football, autumn leaves, and of course Halloween. But for this month we want to focus on shallow depth of field and that obsession photographers have with Bokeh.

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Wacom has introduced the MovinkPad Pro 14, a larger and more powerful addition to its Portable Creative Pad family. Building on the MovinkPad 11, the new device features a 14-inch OLED display, upgraded performance, and enhanced workflow tools aimed at both aspiring and professional creators.

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The punchy shades of autumn give a photographer the perfect opportunity to capture images with a much more arty feel. For those who enjoy playing around with Photoshop there's a way to turn your autumn forest shots into streaks of bold colour in a few easy steps, or you can create a similar look in-camera if you prefer. If you're out on a breezy day there's a third way you can create autumn abstracts by capturing the movement of leaves. 

 

1. Move Your Camera And Lens

This technique is better known as a drag landscape and we have tips on how to do this in a previous article we published back in the spring. To summarise, you set the exposure going then drag/pan the camera in a particular direction. By doing so the trees will be turned into strong lines of colour that give a twist to the normal autumn shot.

You can also focus in on the leaves and play around with your panning directions to create movement in the image. Moving in a circular motion can work particularly well when you're working with the canopy which tends to have less prominent lines and hard edges. Experiment with the size of the circle you 'draw' as again, this will alter the shapes in the image. 

  2. Create The Look In Photoshop

If you've got a few autumn shots hiding away in your computer's folders you can recreate the look the above technique creates in Photoshop. For step-by-step tips on how to do this, take a look at this tutorial: Abstract Autumn Shots In Photoshop

While you have Photoshop open, why not turn your Autumn drag landscapes into a Triptych too? 

  3. Take Your Images On A Windy Day 

Instead of worrying about wind movement of trees spoiling your shot, take advantage of the weather and emphasise the movement. A long exposure will render the autumn leaves into a creative blur. If you're going for a landscape shot where trees are featured but you do have other parts of the scene you don't want to be so blurred, do make sure you take plenty of images as you don't want to head home and find out nothing was actually sharp in frame. You can then just delete the ones you don't want to keep. You will also have to experiment with shutter speeds to ensure you get movement in the leaves but not in other parts of the image. You could achieve the desired result with multiple exposures, too.    

 

When buildings are illuminated at night their shapes and features are enhanced in a very different way than by daylight and it's a great time to take photographs. The most challenging thing is getting the exposure and colour balance right, which we'll help with, otherwise, the standard rules of composition apply which we'll cover briefly first.

 

1. Composition - Don't Forget The Basics 

When shooting upwards expect the building to slope inwards at the top, especially when a wide-angle lens is used. Move to a higher position to reduce the distortion or use a special shift lens that's designed to correct perspective but these are expensive and aren't really a sensible option for the casual shooter.

Try to include the whole building by using a wider angle lens or stepping back to a more suitable viewpoint. Choose the position carefully. The same building could be shot head-on, at an angle of, say, 3/4 or by using a telephoto to capture a section with a more graphical feel. Don't forget you can zoom with your feet as well as your lens, too. When it comes to focusing, manual is your best option. 

  2. Exposures

When the sun goes down the light changes in two ways; firstly the exposure time required increases and secondly the colour of the light becomes warmer. Let's first look at the exposure. In low light, the shutter speed that's necessary to ensure a good exposure will usually be too long to avoid camera shake when hand-holding the camera. Using a tripod enables you to shoot at these long exposure times of between 1/15sec and several seconds or even minutes. If you don't have a tripod you can usually find a wall, lamppost or tree to support the camera, which can help considerably. Or you can try switching to a higher ISO as most cameras now cope well in the higher ranges. This means that in low light situations, such as shooting buildings at night, you can take photos with minimal noise or blurring. You'll also want to put your camera's self-timer into action or use a remote release if you have one as even pressing the shutter button can introduce shake that'll leave your with blurry shots. Consider using the Mirror Lock-up function, too which can be accessed via your camera's menu. 
 

3. Metering

Low light can also fool the camera's meter and this happens because it looks at the mass of dark and tries to compensate to make it mid-grey. By doing so, you get an exposure time that is too long for all the illuminated parts of the scene, such as neon lights, street lights or spotlit areas of a building as they become grossly overexposed.

To avoid this, you need to compensate for it. As a guide, use your exposure compensation setting to reduce the exposure by a couple of stops when most of the area is in darkness and by one stop when the building has a medium coverage of illumination.

 

4. Colour Balance

Illuminated buildings offset against a dark sky can look great, but you have to be careful with the colour as there can be a slightly orange or yellow cast created. Buildings illuminated by artificial light can also be problematic, depending on the lighting used in them. Two popular types are Fluorescent and Tungsten. Fluorescent tend to be used inside in offices and Tungsten in spotlights that part illuminates buildings.

With digital cameras, you can preview the image to check the colour balance and if it doesn't look right, just change the white balance setting you're using. Cloudy will warm your shots up while the Tungsten options will give your images a more blue tone. 

  5. Security

Take care when carrying a camera around at night, especially if you're venturing off the beaten track. Keep alert and where possible, take a friend with you.

  6. What To Capture 

Look for tall buildings you can shoot from. From up high you'll be able to shoot skylines as well as focus on single buildings. For something different, try to shoot the same location in daylight and in the evening. You'll soon see how buildings have a very different feel at night. Cropping in on illuminated buildings can make the image more striking and reduce the black from the surrounding, unlit areas. To give streetlights a 'starburst' use a small aperture which will also give you front-to-back sharpness in your shots too. Exposure times will be longer but if you have your tripod, this won't be an issue. If people are still exploring the city you can use them to add more interest to your shots. Get creative with silhouettes against well-lit structures or how about using slightly longer shutter speeds, say 1/2 a second, to blur the movement of people who pass through your shot. Don't increase your exposure times too much if you want to keep the patterns people create passing through your images though as anything above 15 seconds will probably remove them from your image. Bridges can be used to draw the eye through the image to a particular structure or focus your attention on famous buildings and landmarks which are guaranteed to be lit-up at night.

 

You've read the technique now share your related photos for the chance to win prizes: Daily Forum Competition  

There was something almost sacred about the ritual of loading film, the weight of a purely mechanical camera, and the knowledge that every shot truly mattered because you couldn't just delete your mistakes. We gained convenience with digital, but we lost the soul of what made photography feel like an art form instead of just pointing and clicking.

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our photos are probably great. Your gear is probably better than mine. But if you’re wondering why bookings feel slow, or why inquiries ghost after the first email, it’s probably not your aperture. It’s your voice. The one you use online. The one that’s supposed to make people trust you enough to spend thousands of dollars but instead sounds like it was written by someone speedrunning a personality quiz.

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When it comes to photography and filmmaking, there are numerous filters to choose from. However, when it comes to choosing the right filters for the job, NiSi made that choice much easier with their latest design.

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When you finish editing an image, how you export it matters as much as the edit itself. The wrong choice can leave you with bloated file sizes, poor quality on the web, or no way to make changes later. Knowing the right workflow keeps your edits flexible and your exports ready for print, social, or client delivery.

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Wildlife work lives or dies on reach and handling, and a long zoom that actually goes to 800mm changes what you can shoot. You get tighter subjects without creeping closer, plus the flexibility to reframe when behavior shifts or the scene opens up.

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