It’s officially Autumn and pretty much, our favourite time of year for dog walking. Locally, the last couple of weeks have been particularly impressive with frequent misty mornings, low sunlight and all the fruits flourishing into harvest colours. As well as being perfect for walkies, the low morning and evening sun lengthens “the golden hour” making this an optimum time of year to get out and about with your camera.

Here are a few photos from a particularly stunning morning we were lucky to witness in our local woods last week – and these were just captured with a phone camera!

The sunlight was intense enough to burst through the gaps in the woodland canopy to create powerful light rays in the dense, low lying mist at all angles. An incredibly, fairy tale scene. It is impressive that a modern phone camera is capable of capturing this so well!

Misty scenes can be rather tricky to photograph as the sensor in your camera is tricked into believing that there is more light than there really is. A good tip is to try taking shots with the exposure boosted by around one stop. This helps lift the shadows, lower contrast and capture that ethereal haziness. Also be careful if aiming the lens directly towards the sun and into the rays. This can completely throw the exposure and is also a culprit for lens flare (unless of course, that’s what you’re going for). For shots, directly into the rays, try and obscure the sun behind a tree trunk or branch. This will help correctly expose the scene and capture those beautiful rays bursting out from behind.