first falls

Benjer

EDIT: (Ha ha - helps if I actually post the image! LOL)

Hi all -

don't usually post much outside the Challenges forum, but took this shot yesterday at the falls at Old Stone Fort, Manchester, TN and was hoping for some C&C. It's actually a composite (not quite HDR) of 3 bracketed shots, with some burning and dodging here and there. I can post an unedited for comparison if asked for.

It's my first waterfall shot, and I was standing in ankle-deep water on smooth rock. Taken with a D300, 17-35mm at 19mm with Polarizer, Ap Pr at f/16, approx 2+ sec exposure to fuzz out the falls. Mid afternoon with dappled sunlight and partly cloudy conditions. Had a hard time balancing the dark foreground with the bright background and sky (did someone say "split ND filter"?). Any comments would be appreciated!

thapamd

Fantastic shot! Wonderful exposure control and composition.

wendell

Great shot. Nice choice of shutter speed, not too slow. The 3 shot composite resulted in a beautiful exposure and great detail.
wendell

NorthernFocus

Really nice composition and the shutter speed did a good job on the flowing water. Overall a very pleasing image. Since you asked for C/C, there is a bright green reflection or something in the mid/lower left that's distracting and looks out of place. Something just seems off with the overall lighting. From the angle that the shot is taken my intuition feels like the water in the foreground should be reflecting the bright green trees

schmoo

Hi Benjer! I'm not one to talk these days, but I am always thrilled to see people shoot out of their comfort zones. You're always welcome here, btw

I think that HDR can be a tricky thing, mostly because I haven't gotten it to work myself. Also, sometimes it can be hard to balance the light and darks, as I think may have happened here. The shadows are a bit on the black side, but I'd love to see any other versions that you may be working on. Lots of potential here, for sure. The highlights are just fine though.

argyle

Its a good start, but maybe a little more work is in order. If you were to draw a diagonal line from the bottom right corner up towards the rock that juts out in the center, you'll see that everything above that line is well-exposed and the shadows still have detail. Below that line, the shadows are just too dark and don't reveal any detail at all. Its a nice composition...just needs little more tweaking to punch it up.

Benjer

Thanks for all the constructive comments, which confirm my feeling that it was a little too dark in the foreground, as mentioned. In some ways I liked the deep dark tones but I agree that more detail needs to come out. Interestingly, the highlights in all the originals (even the darkest exposure) were pretty blown out. I was surprised that a little burning in PS brought back detail in the falls - I thought for sure it was lost on the sensor. Glad I was wrong!

Posting a new version soon. Thanks for your help!

Benjer

New version with suggested adjustments. Better? Need more? Thanks for looking!

thapamd

Benjer wrote:

New version with suggested adjustments. Better? Need more? Thanks for looking!

The reworked version looks much better! Great job!

schmoo

Benjer wrote:

New version with suggested adjustments. Better? Need more? Thanks for looking!

Yee haw! Much better! I think you could recover even more, but now it's just a matter of taste.

Nacho

Benjer (My apologies for the confusion re the original poster!), neat shot. I think the second one is improved. Thanks for posting them both.

If you were shooting midday you definitely did the right thing by taking multiple exposures. Water flows are best taken I think in the evening, early morning or on days when there is deep cloud cover and the light is soft and diffused. Preferably when it is not very bright. The difficulty with taking multiple exposures with a fast water flow is that the flow of water will have changed from one shot to the next -- so you will have differences in that flow over the various exposures you make. You can use those other exposures to manually blend (or mask into) images in Photoshop or some other such program - and work the trees, rocks, and/or sky into a more dynamic exposure, but if the watef flow itself has changed... use the best water part you have.

I would recommend a neutral density filter, at least two stops. Good tripod, cable or remote release, a circular polarizer if it seems there is plenty of shine or reflection on the leaves... f/16 is a fine aperture for this type fo shot. Depending on the lens you might be able to tell diffraction effects at that aperture, but in practice I've shot above f/16 with good results (although I would not recommend going past that if you want to generate the best print you can).

A while back there was a thread on water falls and water flows here in the Landscape forum. It was full of god insight. I posted a link, if I recall correctly, to a document I wrote on shooting water flows. Other folks posted amazing shots and great wisdom. Search it out if you get a chance.

And thanks for posting the images again. Good going, keep having fun!

Best,

N

squirl033

agreed... the edited version is much better... could be even a little brighter, but as is it's a great improvement. composition is very good, and the shutter speed was perfect. nicely done!

would you mind if i did a quick edit to pull up a bit more of the foreground?

Benjer

squirl033 wrote:

would you mind if i did a quick edit to pull up a bit more of the foreground?

I don't mind at all - I appreciate your time! I'll try one too, and see how they compare. I guess I'm afraid of making the water look too washed out. wait - water...washed out - now that's funny!

Benjer

Thanks Nacho for all the good info - I'll check out the threads you mentioned. I know what you mean about diff exposures and the water changing - I was able to use that to my advantage with just the technique you mentioned, using masks in PS.

I definitely need a good ND filter - do you have recommendations? I have a good quality B+W circ polarizer which helped tame wild reflections off the wet rocks, and I would be useless without my tripod! I used the timer on my D300 to avoid bumping the camera when tripping the shutter. I've been considering some kind of cable release too...this little hobby just keeps getting more expensive!

Benjer

Thanks everyone for your comments - you really helped me see more objectively and I've been able to get the best exposure possible, I think, from the image as a result. Thanks for encouraging me to put a little more work into it and try something I might have otherwise missed. Below is the latest version, with the original below that for comparison.

New - foreground reflections


Original - dark water