This image of Murhut Falls on the Olympic Peninsula is a little mundane, sort of the generic waterfall. So I would greatly appreciate suggestions for improvement and also wonder whether there are any sources that would help improve my skills of waterfall photography (my normal target is avian!). I selected just the top half of the falls, where I found the patterns of the water to be the most interesting.
Canon 50D
EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM, at 70mm
iso 400
f/4 @ 1/3200
Evaluative metering -0.5
Posted by Cliff Dodge on July 10, 2009 at 11:06 AM
Been there a few times and you are limited with those falls. Climb down the bank and try to get a shot up the creek, and even down the creek a little ways is some nice tumbling water shots, but getting there just takes a little effort. But 1/3200? It doesnt look like 'stopped' water at that speed.
Cliff,
you are so right! The exposure information should read f/8 at 1/10. My brain must have been running even more slowly than usual last night.
Posted by Ned Fenimore on July 10, 2009 at 12:45 PM
I think you are on the right track here. It looks to me like you obtained your goal of maintaining detail in the falls - the speed you used looks correct. It always seems to be for me a balancing act of getting a good middle ground exposure to capture the darker colors, and not allow the whites to blow out - which is so easy to do. If you had wanted a little slower exposure to smooth the water cascades even more it looked like a simple solution would have been to lower your ISO speed to 200 or even 100. Other tricks would be an ND filter - and even a polarizer to cut the light at varying degrees.
What I will typically do is take many exposures - nearly always using a polarizer - but trying different apertures and setting the camera over, and more likely under by varying 1/3 stops. It doesn't hurt to take several - and usually I will end up with a good exposure that I can make adjustments to in post processing to handle slight white hot spots, or darker areas that need a little more exposure. Personally I never blend images at all - I will use the best "base" image and work with that exposure. Lightroom 2 has been the best tool so far for me for making the best image tweaks in exposure.
It's all trial and error - but it is the kind of work that is fun - at least for me. Keep working at it and practice - and take lots of exposures. Experiment.
Hi, Stephen–
Gotta agree with Ned! He's the waterfall expert in the great PNW and has taught many of us here at NPN how to "do" waterfalls by his posts of some really fine falls photos!
And btw, I don't think this photo is that mundane. You're in closer than a lot of people tend to go, which reveals many of the details in the foliage and falls; you set a great shutter speed for a nice combination of blur and detail for this particular cascade (at least for my personal tastes); you didn't oversaturate the greens by the look of it. Perhaps the image needs another tweak in post-processing to get just a little more "punch" or "pop" without being too heavy-handed with the sliders. It's easy to overdo it.
Ned is so right: getting good images of cascades (or any action for that matter!) is all trial and error. Settings vary with the type of waterfall (or action event) and what kind of "look" you want. So take a lot of shots with different combinations of settings. More than likely, several will end up being good for different purposes/customers or your own pleasure. And as you gain experience, you will be able to dial in settings for your subjects a lot quicker. Also, watching the posts in the various forums here at NPN lets you in on a lot of information about camera settings used for all kinds of subjects. It's a blast! And you lucky! ...not having to drive for hours to get to ONP and all the falls and other photographic goodies there.
Discussion
4 repliesCanon 50D
EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM, at 70mm
iso 400
f/4 @ 1/3200
Evaluative metering -0.5
you are so right! The exposure information should read f/8 at 1/10. My brain must have been running even more slowly than usual last night.
What I will typically do is take many exposures - nearly always using a polarizer - but trying different apertures and setting the camera over, and more likely under by varying 1/3 stops. It doesn't hurt to take several - and usually I will end up with a good exposure that I can make adjustments to in post processing to handle slight white hot spots, or darker areas that need a little more exposure. Personally I never blend images at all - I will use the best "base" image and work with that exposure. Lightroom 2 has been the best tool so far for me for making the best image tweaks in exposure.
It's all trial and error - but it is the kind of work that is fun - at least for me. Keep working at it and practice - and take lots of exposures. Experiment.
Gotta agree with Ned! He's the waterfall expert in the great PNW and has taught many of us here at NPN how to "do" waterfalls by his posts of some really fine falls photos!
And btw, I don't think this photo is that mundane. You're in closer than a lot of people tend to go, which reveals many of the details in the foliage and falls; you set a great shutter speed for a nice combination of blur and detail for this particular cascade (at least for my personal tastes); you didn't oversaturate the greens by the look of it. Perhaps the image needs another tweak in post-processing to get just a little more "punch" or "pop" without being too heavy-handed with the sliders. It's easy to overdo it.
Ned is so right: getting good images of cascades (or any action for that matter!) is all trial and error. Settings vary with the type of waterfall (or action event) and what kind of "look" you want. So take a lot of shots with different combinations of settings. More than likely, several will end up being good for different purposes/customers or your own pleasure. And as you gain experience, you will be able to dial in settings for your subjects a lot quicker. Also, watching the posts in the various forums here at NPN lets you in on a lot of information about camera settings used for all kinds of subjects. It's a blast! And you lucky! ...not having to drive for hours to get to ONP and all the falls and other photographic goodies there.