Fall color at West Fork Trail Sedona, AZ

Color had been starting to change in Oak Creek Canyon. I noticed that there were two cold fronts on the way and bolted up the road. Caught the last of the fall leaves hanging on the trees on the hike in on the trail. Watched a ton of leaves ranging down upon the hike toward the exit. Got there just in time.

Focus stack

As this was the tail end of the color, it was patchy. So, I made a judicious selection of the landscape with lots of cropping in-camera. My favorite image was one that required a bit of a scramble up the hill to isolate the colorful leaves left. This little patch of red and yellow had a large tree that succumbed to gravity. It added some wonderful leading lines to the composition. I was able to get the image in focus from foreground to the trees using focus bracketing on the OM-1 camera (link to Om-1 and OM-1 Mark II). With automatic focus bracket, the scene is rendered in camera with multiple images stacked and saved as a .jpg file. In addition, all the RAW files from the bracket are saved as well. This also allowed for higher end processing.

I used an eXtreme base support with a Handle from Platypod. This was topped with a small ball head from Benro. Often, I use this setup to lighten the load when I go hiking.

Taming dynamic range

My second favorite photo was one which I almost passed by. When I looked the sun was shining brightly on the leaves. So bright that I thought there would be no way to fit the dynamic range in without an exposure bracket. Not having much luck with blowing leaves I felt the bracket idea was a no go. I grabbed a frame anyway, just in case. Turns out with a little post processing massage the scene and color played out nicely. Using Adobe Camera RAW to start, I was able to bring down the highlights and open the shadows. A little extra tweaking for color and tone pulled out the detail I wanted in the photo.

Second favorite shot of the day. 40-150mm lens @ 40mm 1/60 sec. f/8 ISO 200

Time

I feel the passage of time was rendered in this image of roots from a fallen tree. Roots were exposed to the elements for so long they became a work of art on their own. Shape, form and tone were enhanced by the few leaves entwined within the roots. I made a number of exposures to find this composition.

Colorful leaves plank this Ponderosa Pine right on the trail. Needed the wide angle to make this work. M.Zukio 7-14mm f/2.8 Pro lens @14mm 1/160 sec. f/8 ISO 5000

Gear

My camera is an OM-1 and I split between the 40-150mm (80-300mm full frame equivalent field of view) and the 7-14mm (14-28mm FF FOV) f/2.8 Pro lenses. The longer zoom allowed reaching into the forest and isolating details an small sections of the scene. The wide zoom was used to exaggerate for a different field of view that the eye can not replicate on its own. I f you note there are some big differences in ISO I was shooting in aperture priority and auto ISO.

As always, Yours in Creative Photography,

Bob

• Posted on November 11, 2024