Cascade Bay Waterfall Plus...

NorthernFocus

This past weekend we visited Cascade Bay on Prince William Sound. The bay is well known for having the largest waterfall in the Sound. It is indeed an impressive fall that dumps directly into the tide waters of the bay. Impressed as we were, however, the fall was not very photogenic. It was also difficult to photograph as it can only be approached by water with the closest opposing shoreline being half a mile or so across the bay. But after we found a spot to anchor our boat a little ways down the bay, we went ashore and found an interesting little creek. Overall it was a good day

Cascade Falls


Here is a shot taken the following morning (in the rain) which gives some perspective on size. The yacht (not ours :cry) in the picture is 50 ft (15m) or so long.



And here is the little gem of a creek we found a little ways down the bay. It was fairly well hidden by thick alder bushes along the banks. Unfortunately alder lined creeks are a favorite haunt of bears in this part of the world. Fortunately we didn't run into any :rolleyes

Here's a shot taken from just above tideline where it drains into the bay.


Working upstream from there...
EXIF=1s f/29.0 at 46.0mm iso200


My personal favorite of the trip.
EXIF=0.77s f/29.0 at 45.0mm iso200


Any farther than this would have required getting out in the bushes for a ways.
EXIF=0.77s f/29.0 at 32.0mm iso200


One could easily have spent hours wandering further upstream until you reached a spot where the creek tumbled near verticle for 200-300 feet down the side of a cliff. I lacked the personal courage to do so in light of the high liklihood of running into the local residents somewhere along the way :huh

I guess the photographic moral of this story is "keep your eyes and mind open". The best photo to be had may not be the one you were looking for :dunno

dogwood

My first thought was -- where's the scale to show the size of the waterfall and you answered that in the second photo. I actually like the creek photos more than the waterfall though. Very nice work with those

NorthernFocus

Thanks, Pete. The creek was definately the highlight of the trip. I just couldn't do anything with the falls

MelP

I love the last 3 shots!! Do you mind sharing your settings for these? I tried numerous waterfalls over the weekend and most of the water seemed way too bright (think it had to do with the bright sun)

Mel

schmoo

This is in incredibly gorgeous area! I'm glad you didn't surprise any bears, too. I bet one could spend days just hiking and exploring the lush green lands there.

I love the shot of the waterfall and the yacht. I kind of like how it was raining, as it added a little mystery to the air.

NorthernFocus

Thanks for the encouraging words, Schmoo. There is no shortage of landscape opportunities up here. With the amount of rain we get on the coast, I need to figure out how to take advantage it and create some good effects

MelP wrote: »

... Do you mind sharing your settings for these? I tried numerous waterfalls over the weekend and most of the water seemed way too bright (think it had to do with the bright sun)

Mel

All images taken with D200 w/16-85mm, polarizer used in lieu of having an ND filter, tripod, timer release. Edited original post with EXIF added to last three images as requested.

There are others in the forums much more experienced than me, but from my limited knowledge I'd say if you were taking stream/fall shots in bright sunlight, you would definately need an ND filter and assuming there are dark rocks and/or moss in the stream, you'd probably have to use HDR and combine a couple of exposures. Ideal stream/fall photography needs overcast sky or shade. Actually I think I missed optimum shutter speed on these shots. I was trying to get longer shutter to get that real misty effect but I didn't have an ND filter with me. So I ended up between smooth motion and misty. With small creeks like this I've had pretty good smooth results with 1/5 to 1/10s and I've seen really misty stuff by others at 5s plus. These were in between and ended up kind of ... fuzzy?