Palouse Falls (my version!)

coscorrosa · May 28, 2009

Danny (dseidman) and I met up for sunset at Palouse Falls in central Washington on Sunday. There were no clouds, but the scenery is still pretty incredible, and I didn't fall off the cliff and die, so that's cool. I'm definitely going to eye the forecast and try to hit this place under better conditions, and with enough time to explore other areas.

#1:

#2: Vertigo!

#3: About two hours before sunset there was a cool rainbow at the base of the falls:

And this is what #3 looked like live:

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rookieshooter · May 28, 2009

Great pic. How long was the exposure?

shniks · May 28, 2009

Ron, #1 is superb. Is it an HDR? Looks great!

Cheers,

dseidman · May 28, 2009

These turned out great! I feel kind of bad for you having to hold that GND filter out in front of the lens on all those shots. Did you also have to do a blend to get that swirling water?

dseidman · May 28, 2009

Damn, maybe one of us should have documented that giant beetle. I wonder if anyone will believe it.

Abiciriderback · May 28, 2009

Ron

Very cool images hard to believe a crazy kayaker went off the 180ft falls a few weeks back and survived with nothing more than a sprained wrist but it was well planned.

Ray Still

Awais Yaqub · May 28, 2009

Omg these are splendid 1st is my favorite !

coscorrosa · May 28, 2009

rookieshooter wrote:

Great pic. How long was the exposure?

Thanks, 30 seconds at f/18 and ISO 100.

coscorrosa · May 28, 2009

shniks wrote:

Ron, #1 is superb. Is it an HDR? Looks great!

Cheers,

Thanks Nikhil, it was a single exposure (polarizer and 3-stop GND filter). There was some vignetting due to the polarizer but I tried to fix it as much as I could.

scole · May 28, 2009

Ron I thought something was odd about #1 and when Danny confirmed your use of a ND Grad, I knew it was that. The sky just looks funny to me (particularly the dark spot in the upper right corner). Was it a hard edge ND? I think the grad line is noticable about 1/4 of the way down from the top (1/2 way up the cliff face at center of the frame).

I do like the composition that both of you chose. Up until now, the only shots of the falls I have seen don't include the outlet and I think that adds quite a bit to the composition..

coscorrosa · May 28, 2009

dseidman wrote:

These turned out great! I feel kind of bad for you having to hold that GND filter out in front of the lens on all those shots. Did you also have to do a blend to get that swirling water?

Damn, maybe one of us should have documented that giant beetle. I wonder if anyone will believe it.

Actually no, it was just a long exposure (30 seconds) due to the polarizer and 3-stop GND filter. I did bracket but I didn't end up using any of the other exposures.

As for the beetle, that thing was ridiculously huge. Probably better that it remains undocumented.

coscorrosa · May 28, 2009

scole wrote:

Ron I thought something was odd about #1 and when Danny confirmed your use of a ND Grad, I knew it was that. The sky just looks funny to me (particularly the dark spot in the upper right corner). Was it a hard edge ND? I think the grad line is noticable about 1/4 of the way down from the top (1/2 way up the cliff face at center of the frame).

I do like the composition that both of you chose. Up until now, the only shots of the falls I have seen don't include the outlet and I think that adds quite a bit to the composition..

That's the effect of the polarizer (which was probably twisted too much) with a wide angle lens, not the GND. The cliff face was actually darker near the top. FWIW, I used a 3-stop reverse ND filter over thirty seconds and slid it up and down so there shouldn't be an obvious line. Granted, having the GND with the polarizer exagerrated the banding effect of the polarizer because it gave that part of the photo more contrast.

Marc Muench · May 28, 2009

Good composition, you guys really nailed it! I agree you must go back with some atmosphere. Really like the swirl

Live view really pays for itself on edges

I used to get a bit disoriented on the edge looking through view finders.

schmoo · May 28, 2009

dseidman wrote:

Damn, maybe one of us should have documented that giant beetle. I wonder if anyone will believe it.

You can't say things like that and NOT have evidence, esp as now DSLRs have video capabilities.

Great take on a really gorgeous place, both of you

coscorrosa · May 28, 2009

Marc Muench wrote:

Good composition, you guys really nailed it! I agree you must go back with some atmosphere. Really like the swirl
Live view really pays for itself on edges I used to get a bit disoriented on the edge looking through view finders.

Thanks Marc! I agree with live view, I sort of viewed it as a gimmick feature when I first heard of it, but now I wouldn't buy a camera without it, really makes it easy to manually focus and to get compositions in awkward setups.

coscorrosa · May 28, 2009

schmoo wrote:

You can't say things like that and NOT have evidence, esp as now DSLRs have video capabilities.

Great take on a really gorgeous place, both of you

I didn't have a wide enough lens to capture the beetle in its entirety and I was too lazy to do a pano

There's a lot of canyons in Eastern Washington, especially the south east part of the state (Hell's Canyon for example). Just a completely different landscape than the west side of the mountains.

dlplumer · May 30, 2009

Love that first one Ron. You sure have long exposure, gnd, vp, pov, pp, and composition mastered

I am so jealous.

Palouse Falls (my version!)

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