Essential for Waterfall Photography

Garwin Falls Veil

I’m getting things together for my Spring Waterfall Workshop, coming up this weekend.  I have been scouting many of my favorite regional waterfalls, and although I know that some of the more ephemeral falls can dry up quickly, so far, the flows are looking good.  Still I am praying for a little more rain this week. 

The workshop begins Friday night with a meet and great at the house We will plan our rough itinerary for Saturday and I will have a chance to review some of the essential elements of waterfall photography.  So here is a review  are a few essentials for capturing falling water.

1 ) Being There

It should be obvious, but the first step is to get out to the falls when there is a vigorous flow of water.  The spring run-off can be a reliable source, but later, the results are usually best following a significant rain storm.

Polarizer & Graduated ND Filter
Arethusa Falls, Livermore NH

As always, the right conditions are critical. Overcast or rainy weather is often best. Bright sunlight produces brilliant reflections and hot spots that can make exposure impossible without heavy application of HDR techniques. Soft diffuse light allows all of the detail in the rocks and water to shine through and the lower illumination makes it much easier to use long exposures that create the soft look that is so popular. In brilliant sunshine, even your smallest aperture and slowest ISO will not be enough to adequately slow the shutter speed. A fully applied polarizing filter can take away a couple of stops, but when more light reduction is needed a neutral density filter may be needed to extend the shutter duration to render that magical, cotton candy, effect.

2) Getting Steady

It seems silly to have to say this, but waterfall photography requires a sturdy tripod. My only advice about tripods is spend the money to get a good one. If you buy a cheap tripod, you will be replacing it every few years and all you will ever have is a CHEAP tripod. An expensive tripod will be the only one you will ever need. It will save money in the long run and you will always have a GREAT tripod.

3) Filters

The one essential photographic filter is the polarizer, and this is

especially true for waterfall photography. The polarizer performs the magic of blunting the reflection on rocks and water allowing the native colors to shine through, but the maximum effect is not always the best. Some reflection may be helpful to add definition to the flowing water. Experimentation is the best way to

Non-Polarized

find the right amount, but at times the optimal polarization for the rocks may be too much for the water. Here is where the fun of stacked images and masking can come in, but, seriously, you can drive yourself crazy with this stuff. Most of the time a comfortable compromise is available. Finally, as I mentioned above, the polarizer blocks one or two stops of light making it easier to capture the  long exposure required to "velvetize" (my word, feel free to steal it) the water.

Polarized

4) Shutter Speed

I am often ask about the correct shutter speed for waterfall photography, and I have struggled to find a simple rule that can be generally applied.

Forty Foot Falls Cascade

  A few years ago, I tried to apply some scientific rigor to the problem.  I spent a couple of hours at one of my favorite local collection of falls and cascades, Forty Foot Falls, along Merriman Brook in Surry New Hampshire. These falls, include drops of varying heights and can be easily approached from different distances. I took multiple images from various locations with shutter speeds in increments from 1/30th  to 4 seconds. The weather was perfect, a dark overcast shortly following a significant rain storm. After careful analysis, the results of this non- randomized, single blinded study were conclusive and a failure.  

Forty Foot Falls Test

The best shutter for any waterfall is dependent on too many factors to surrender to a simple formula.  The most important confounding factor, of course, is individual taste.  We all have our own preferences for the degree of "velvetization".  My overall goal for waterfalls is a shutter speed which is long enough to provide the velvety look without being so long as to render the water without any texture and interest.  On average I find this to range between 0.25 and 1 second, but the best result is dependent on a number of factors, including the speed of the water, the depth, interruptions to flow and the distance from the falls. I love the soft look, but a fast shutter can work to freeze the random calamity of a boiling cascade

The Speed of the flow depends on the height and steepness of the falls and the degree to which the water falls unobstructed.  Faster flows are best captured with faster shutter speeds to preserve a sense of texture. 

Deep falls obscure the underlining rocks and depend on the water detail for visual interest, making faster shutter speeds necessary.

 
Obstructions such as rocks and ledges slow the flow, diverting and fanning the water into streams that can be captured at longer shutters before detail is lost. 

Pond Brook Falls in Time

Moss Glen Falls

All of these effects are blunted by greater distance from the subject.  My more distant image from Moss Glen Falls in Granville, Vermont was taken with full polarization and a 10 second exposure, but from this distant the interest came from the streaming and fanning of the water and was not weaken by the loss of surface texture.

5 ) Exposure

It can be challenging to achieve good exposure for both the bright

Gentle HDR : Catsbane Brook

falling water and the surrounding dark rocks.  Multi-image HDR techniques can work well, but capturing the full dynamic range in a single image is more difficult.  The best compromise is one that results in an image that allows the salvaging of both the highlights and shadows.  In this  situation, “exposing to the right” (ETTR) can be critical.  Increasing the exposure as far as possible, without blowing out the highlights, will allow for better detail in the shadows as the image is processed.  It is important to avoid blowing out the highlights.  Even a small area of pure white, without detail, can shine out awkwardly and no amount of processing can retrieve detail where none exists

To allow for long shutter speeds, the f stops are typically quite high.  I usually try to avoid the diffraction caused by extremely small apertures, but waterfall photography often forces me to accept f stops in the 18-22 range.  

6) Safety (This should really be number one)

Steep banks below
the Ashuelot Arch Bridge

Special attention to safety is seldom more critical than when standing precariously on slippery rocks, inches from a precipitous drop to raging water, or while sliding down a steep bank to reach a roaring brook.  The basic rules are the same.

First: Most of the best shots are seen from difficult to reach locations, where your life may be in danger.  More importantly, your equipment will be at risk of loss or damage.  Start by assuming the worst WILL happen.

Second: A few simple precautions, faithfully followed, can substantially reduce the risk of disaster. The key is to slow down and focus on your gear and your feet. Generally, the beautiful stuff will still be there once everything is secure.

Slow Down

Scary spot over Lower Purgatory Falls

Think before you move and never assume that your foot will hold on the leaves and wet rocks.  Have a back-up, a tree, a hiking pole or just your other foot.  When adjusting your equipment try to keep at least two points of control, two hands, a hand and a neck strap or hands and the tripod.  

Never fully trust the tripod.  Whenever my camera and tripod are over water, I always keep my neck strap on.  At times it can be awkward, all it takes is a gust of wind or a slipping leg for your camera to end up in the brook.  A few years ago, I was shooting by a stream in Harrisville.  I turned away for a second to grab something from my bag and my tripod toppled over dunking my camera in the icy water. It was a costly way to learn an important lesson.

 

Painful experience has also taught me to keep the holder under my filter as I unscrew.  The filter always seems to come off as you re-grip.

 

Changing lenses can be especially scary.  When I am in a vulnerable position, I try to avoid switching, but, if absolutely necessary, I stop, put everything down and try not to juggle more than one thing at a time. I secure one lens before taking another out, and position myself to screen everything from the mist.

Waterfall photography provides many exciting opportunities and challenges.  Hopefully these suggestions will help encourage you to get out there and enjoy one of this season’s greatest attractions.

Jeff Newcomer
partridgebrookreflections.com

603-363-8338

Seeing the Unseen

This week I would like to celebrate the amazing capability of modern photography to help us to see the unseen.  My goal is only to touch on what is possible and to provide links to more detailed explorations.

From its invention, photography has been a medium that was prized for its ability to capture what we see in flawless detail, freezing more of "reality" than could ever be absorbed by our limited visual perceptions.  Without special forethought, my photography has tended toward images that celebrate the beautiful detail of the natural world.  I have tried to use the remarkable powers of digital photography and editing to place viewers in locations as I have seen them, working to display the mood as well as the reality of the remarkable world around us.  But photography has always provided a means to see things beyond our normal perceptual capacity, that are not accessible to the naked eye (THERE, I got the word "naked" into the article - TWICE!  Watch my hits soar!). 


Anyway, In the beginning photography captured "Reality" in its own way based on its technical limitations.  It has always had the remarkable ability to freeze time, not only for moments but for centuries.  As initially a black and white medium, photography washed the color from the world and forced a new focus on light and pattern that had always been hidden under a gaudy chromatic layer in our perception.  Photography has expanded and altered our vision in many other ways and, digital photography, although not required for many of these advances, has made them more easily accessible and pushed opened the door to these unseen new worlds.  I have discussed many of these techniques in much greater detail in previous articles, but here is a brief list of some of the ways that photography can open our eyes to a new worlds.  Let the journey begin.  




Infrared
Infrared photography is perhaps the best example of seeing the unseen.  Infrared is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum beyond deep red.  Although these longer wave lengths are beyond the ability of our eyes to detect, infrared photographs have been captured since the early 1900's.  Today a digital camera can be modified to respond to the infrared making it much easier to capture this invisible world.  The infrared spectrum shows foliage in brilliant light, making summer scenes appear like winter landscapes.  It cuts through haze and reveals puffy clouds in stark contrast against inky black skies.  With infrared photography it is often possible to capture powerful images on days when the light is too flat and dull for strong conventional images.  I found it well worth the expense to modify my old Canon 20D doorstop to become my IR camera.
For More Information:
 Infrared, Seeing Photography in a Different Light


HDR
High dynamic range photography can be used to overcome the 

Improving Dynamic Range

limitations of film and digital sensors in recording the full range of light and dark apparent to our eyes.  In this sense it actually improves the ability to capture what we can already perceive, but HDR and its evil twin, tone mapping, has the seemingly unbounded artistic capability to mutate reality, 
turning a mirror on the artists mood and fancy rather than the reality of the moment.  I love HDR because it provides such an unlimited opportunity for self-expression.  I generally use these tools to render images that better reflect the dynamic range that was apparent in the field, but occasionally it is fun to go crazy, jump through the looking glass,  and produce something that truly would never be apparent to the eye.




Going Crazy

For More Information:
HDR: Bon Appetitt
Taming the HDR Beast



Stop Motion:
Stopping motion requires fast shutter speeds that the high ISO capability of new digital cameras has made more practical.  I remember, from the ancient past, when loading the camera with  ASA 400 film was a considered reckless, trading speed for the assumed damage to image quality.  Based on the lighting, I can now easily dial up the ISO to whatever is required, to allow a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the action or capture images in inky darkness..  The combination of the improved low light sensitivity of new digital sensors and the capability of software noise reduction algorithms has made it possible to maintain acceptable image quality at ridiculously high ISO levels.
For More Information:
 Accidental Bird Photography
Great Blue Heron on Harvey Pond


Long Exposure;
Long exposures have always been a capability of photography.  In 

Crowded Portland Street

fact in the early days it was a requirement. Daguerreotype portraits required an exposure of 2 or more seconds. Today long exposures can accomplish a long list of magical effects.  An exposure of a even a second or less can transform a roaring chaotic stream into a soft dream-like confection, looking nothing like the original scene, but providing a sense of frozen movement.  Long exposures of a busy street can remove all the distractions of moving cars and annoying people,  magically focusing on the stationary scene.  Star tract images of the night sky transforms individual stars from points of light into majestic arcs rotating around the north star. All of these technique are made much simpler by the ability, in the digital camera, to immediately review the results and adjust exposures accordingly

For More Information:
Photographing the Magic of Velvet Water
Long Exposure Crowd Control
Star Track Photography


Deep Space:
While we are talking about night sky images, I think one of the most impressive ways that digital cameras have altered our sense of nighttime wonder has come from the ability that long exposures and high ISO have to extend our vision into deep space. ISOs ranging from 1600 to 6400 and exposures of 20-30 seconds brings a dense sea of stars into view that are invisible to our eyes even on the darkest night.  Beyond doubt,  the celebrity of this celestial show is our own galaxy, the Milky Way.  The most impressive images usually show the Milky Way's brilliant band in some appropriately interesting setting, and there are now many programs and Apps that can tell us precisely when, and where to stand to place a lighthouse, a tree or a silo in front of the show.  I live in the country and I often get a clear view of the sky, but even here the digital camera easily converts a subtle smug into a breathtaking view of our galactic disc.
For More Information
Night Time Photography, Searching for the Milky Way
Photographing Comet PanSTARRS


Time Lapse
Time lapse photography compresses time allowing us to see in a few seconds what occurred over hours.  All that is necessary is a sturdy tripod, an intervalometer to time the exposures and software to assemble the hundreds of images into a video.  For quick and simple time lapse videos I have used Quick Time, but many other options exist. I'm still a novice, but I have enjoyed creating videos of the setting sun, billowing clouds,  or stars moving majestically across the sky.  I even have one of Susan and I decorating the Christmas tree. 

Monadnock Sunset



 
Tree Trimming


For More Information
Time Lapse Time


Focus Stacking
It may seem that the use of focus stacking to achieve a deep depth of field only replicates what our eyes can capture, but in fact eyes have the same focusing  limitations as any lens and iris system.  The only reason that we feel we can see everything from near to far in sharp focus is that our eyes are constantly and subconsciously adjusting focus as we move our attention around the scene.  A photograph with sharp focus throughout is actually a representation of the world beyond the capability of our vision, but it does match the dynamic nature of our perception.
For More Information:
Focus I
Focus II
Hand-Held Focus Stacking


Of course there are more ways that digital photography allows us to see the unseen. Editing software can alter our vision and a world without a tangle of wires in front of every beautiful scene is a priceless gift of Photoshop. It has been thrilling to explore some of the photographic options available, but It is also humbling to realize all that I need to learn.  But then again the endless opportunities to learn are what make photography endlessly exciting.

Jeffrey Newcomer
Partridgebrookreflections.com