Purgatory Falls

Wicked_Dark

Purgatory brook is a pretty large waterway in south-central NH and used to have a large sawmill just below these falls. At the falls (behind the granite and out of sight in the shot) are the remains of a mill-pond dam. The mill burned down in the 60s and now is part of conservation land. I'd never explored it before and was amazed with a perfect day -

Lower Purgatory Falls -


Where the brook gets wide and the mountain laurel is everywhere -


Just after a major split in the brook where the laurel is even denser -


All done on a bright, overcast day just after rain so the colors were intense. E-30, ZD 12-60mm, travel tripod, polarizer and ND filters. I'm definitely going to reshoot when the mountain laurel blooms (pale pink flowers). thanks for taking a peek.

bgarland

Beautiful images. Your killing me here with the nice streams, falls and surrounding scenery.

If you saw my attempt at Lemmon Creek here in Southern Arizona all I had to work with was a small trickle through a rock crack.

Wicked_Dark

I did see that Brad...sorry. We got a TON of snow this year and have had a cold, wet spring so there is water flowing everywhere. There was even a guy fishing right at the falls to the right and out of the frame. Don't know if he caught anything though.

bgarland

If you don't mind me asking how long was your exposure? I think on mine I may have over done it and frosted the water a tad too much. Thx

Wicked_Dark

the first one is f10 @ 1.3 seconds, the second is f9 1.6 seconds and bit too underexposed, but salvageable, the third is 1 second at f8 with .7+ ev. I had a really hard time judging the highlights with the ND filter on (I don't use it much) so I just watched the histogram until I was happy with it. the falls shot is underexposed for the scene, but on target for the waterfall itself so all it needed was A LOT of brightness adjustment in Lightroom. I really need to use the ND filter more to get a better feel for how it affects exposure.

bgarland

Thanks for sharing your approach. If I remember my exposures were way longer varying from 8s all the way up to 30s @ f16 and ISO 100. I would have to use my lighter ND filter in the same conditions to keep the exposure faster. I think that would give me a nicer more solid water frosting.

Thanks again for the guidance.

Wicked_Dark

I find that you don't need extra long exposures if all you want is silky water. of course there are degrees, but I find under 5 seconds generally works. I also try to keep my lens in its sweet spot whenever possible and I don't choke it down all the way to f22 unless REALLY necessary. The couple of times I've gone longer than say 10 seconds is to capture this whirlpool - it was 20 seconds or so -



I didn't have an ND filter yet, so just used the polarizer and shot before the sun crested the trees on an overcast day. Checking the shot after I took it let me see whether I'd caught a full enough rotation or not. Luckily I had since I had to stop down to f18 already at ISO 100. Phew!

squirl033

yeah, you can acheive that silky, soft-water" effect with shutter speeds as fast as 1/2 second, depending on light and the state of the water. for really smooth water, 2-5 seconds is usually enough. i've never found the need to go beyond 5 sec for the streams and waterfalls i've shot. - but then again, i haven't found a whirlpool like this that would require it!

bgarland

Yep, my longer exposure approach resulted in steam instead of just "soft water". I guess in some cases you may want that but not for most stream/fall shots. Lesson learned. Thanks.