North Fork Sauk River falls

squirl033

took a little jaunt up into the woods on Labor Day to try to get some shots of the North Fork Falls on the Sauk River, which is in the foothills about 40 miles east of Everett, WA. i'd been up there before, but in November, and there was so much water going over the falls it was nothing but spray, and the woods looked all gray and dreary. much better luck this time... 5D2, 24-105 @ 28mm, 1/40 @ f/11, -1/3EV, ISO 800



here's another view, a bit farther down the bank where the trail doesn't go...

Stumblebum

I love #1!! Its post-card quality! Being greedy, I wish the shutter was just slower to further enhance that milky affect that we are accustomed to when it comes to waterfalls. However, as is, still beautiful!!!

squirl033

Stumblebum wrote: »

I love #1!! Its post-card quality! Being greedy, I wish the shutter was just slower to further enhance that milky affect that we are accustomed to when it comes to waterfalls. However, as is, still beautiful!!!

thanks! actually, i purposely avoided the slower shutter speed - that's why i shot at ISO 800. a slower shutter would have turned the falls into just a featureless blob of white, totally devoid of any texture or sense of power or movement. a high-flow waterfall like this one needs a faster shutter speed to preserve at least some of the sense of movement and flow. as it is, even at 1/40th a lot of the detail and texture are lost, but it was the best compromise in terms of overall exposure.

Stumblebum

squirl033 wrote: »

thanks! actually, i purposely avoided the slower shutter speed - that's why i shot at ISO 800. a slower shutter would have turned the falls into just a featureless blob of white, totally devoid of any texture or sense of power or movement. a high-flow waterfall like this one needs a faster shutter speed to preserve at least some of the sense of movement and flow. as it is, even at 1/40th a lot of the detail and texture are lost, but it was the best compromise in terms of overall exposure.

That makes sense. High flow changes equation.

kdog

Beautiful comps of a great location, Rocky. I'm not seeing a lot of details in the upper portion of the falls in either shots though. Did you have to use a lot of recovery or highlights adjustments on these?

squirl033

kdog wrote: »

Beautiful comps of a great location, Rocky. I'm not seeing a lot of details in the upper portion of the falls in either shots though. Did you have to use a lot of recovery or highlights adjustments on these?

thanks! yeah, there's not much there... there wasn't much detail visible even with the naked eye - it was all pretty much whitewater, so frothy that even with a faster shutter there wasn't much detail to see. and the surrounding area was dark enough that i pretty much had to choose between keeping detail in the water and leaving everything else hopelessly dark, or sacrificing some of the water to bring out detail in the surroundings. i chose the latter. i did do a fair bit of recovery to try to salvage the waterfall itself, but as you can see, i only had limited success...

kdog

It's amazing how much dynamic range there is in a scene like this. Good application for a multiple exposure blend (manual or HDR).

squirl033

is this better? i fiddled with the exposure to tone down the water a bit...

kdog

Much better.