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Fotog Friday: On Shooting Waterfalls

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Written By Tim Brister

Tim has a missionary heart for his hometown to love those close to him yet far from God. He is husband to Dusti and father to Nolan, Aiden, and Adelyn - fellow pilgrims to our celestial city.

Over the past couple of years, I have had the opportunity to shoot waterfalls in Kentucky, North Carolina, Minnesota, and Ecuador. A couple of days ago, a friend who is going on a week-long hike on the AT (Appalachian Trail) asked me about some tips on shooting waterfalls. I thought I’d pass some of it along with you as well. Let me make a quick opening remark: Your ability to capture great waterfall shots may be limited more because of your camera than your skill. If you don’t have an SLR camera, some of what I mention below may not even be an option for you. In any case, you might find something helpful. Let me warn you that I did not get this out of a book, but these are simply my observations from my experimentations. So here goes . . .

1. The best time to shoot a waterfall is either early in the morning or around sunset. The absolute worst time to shoot is mid-day in direct sunlight. The reason for this is because you cannot shoot long-exposure shots (unless you have a radical ND filter). Overcast skies are great for color as well. So if you have a waterfall in mind, plan the hike or trip so that you arrive where the light is not so direct and not so bright. Also, on another note, early morning times are best to avoid tourists at popular waterfall destinations. Not many will be hanging out at 6:30 a.m. unless they are as serious as you are in photography. 😉

2. If possible, look into getting a Circular Polarizer filter. This is for two reasons: first, the filter darkens the lens, giving you an extra 1/3 stop allowing for longer exposures, and second, rotating the filter allows for your choice of reflections in the water or richer colors. If you plan to shoot any waterfalls or motion shots, a circular polarizer is a worthy investment.

3. Be sure to bring a tripod with you. It is essential. And if you have a remote or cable release thing, that is even better because even tapping the shutter button can cause a little camera shake. If you have custom function abilities to do a mirror lock-up, that is preferred as well, but remember you have to press the shutter button twice (the first locks the mirror, the second takes the picture).

4. Shoot with the fastest film speed, preferably an ISO of 100 (or 50 if you can!).

5. Close the aperture as much as possible. Depending on your focal length, you will be able to close it up to f/22, f/29, or even f/36 (or more). The more you close it, the longer exposure you will be able to take.

6. Experiment with the flow of the waterfall. Depending on the volume of the water, you may want to shoot from 1/2 sec to 4-5 sec exposures. Take several images of the same shot, slightly changing the shutter speed to find the best setting. Too long an exposure will blow out the details of the water, and too short an exposure will eliminate the details surrounding the waterfall (such as rocks, trees, foliage, etc.). You want the “milky” look, but you also want to achieve a balance with the scenery. Granted, the exposure gradient between the whiteness of the waterfall and the blackness of a rock is often hard to reconcile (unless you shoot HDR or merge multiple images), but generally I read the light of the waterfall and shoot 1/3 to 2/3 stop lower than what my light meter tells me. That way, I don’t blow out the water and bring out more of the background. So in a nutshell, a typical setting would look something like this:

Focal Length :: 28 mm
ISO :: 100
Aperture :: f/29
Shutter Speed :: 2 sec.
Mirror Lockup :: ON

7. Be creative with your composition. Some tripods you can take the center shaft and turn it upside down. That way, your tripod can be right-side up, but your camera inches from the water, giving you a very cool take on the waterfall. However, be sure to check the security and safety of the camera to prevent it from being dropped, especially in the water! You can also shoot different angles or frame the photo with the the landscape around the waterfalls. If you have a Circular Polarizer, shoot some with water reflections and some without. Anybody can take pictures of waterfalls, but not everybody can take great pictures of waterfalls. Your creativity can make the difference.

8. Take advantage of local areas and practice. You can go to your local park where there might be a spring, or a fountain, or anything of that sort and practice taking the same shots you would at a waterfall. In the past month, I was at two places where I thought it would make for good practice (go here and here to see images) although I did not have my tripod with me.

9. Finally, be aware of dust on your sensor. Whenever you close your aperture past say f/16, you will like see spots on your image. Before shooting, you may want to clean your sensor, or if you don’t know how or have time, you can deal with them in the post-processing of the image. In my case, I simply use the clone-stamp tool in Photoshop to remove the sensor dust right now. But it is good to clean the sensor on a regular basis.

* Optional: While adjusting White Balance is something I generally like to do in post-processing (since I shoot RAW and not JPEG), I prefer to do a custom White Balance job on the spot.  To do this, you need to have a custom function that will allow you to do custom white balance.  What you do is take a picture of something predominantly white in the direction of the waterfall.  Then you choose that image to manually adjust the White Balance.  Doing this will help ensure the proper color of the waterfall and potentially bring out nicer hues in the landscape.  If you are feeling creative, you can do a custom White Balance job with an image that is predominantly (any other color than white), and see what you get.  For instance, if you choose an image predominantly orange, you are tricking your camera to think orange is white and white is orange.  Pretty cool.

Tomorrow, I will post some of my waterfall shots from the various places aforementioned in this post. If you have any questions or if you think I left something out, please let me know! I am sure there is much more to learn than what I have said here.

12 thoughts on “Fotog Friday: On Shooting Waterfalls”

  1. Help me understand these two comments:

    “4. Shoot with the fastest film speed, preferably an ISO of 100 (or 50 if you can!).

    5. Close the aperture as much as possible. Depending on your focal length, you will be able to close it up to f/22, f/29, or even f/36 (or more). The more you close it, the longer exposure you will be able to take.”

    ISO 50/100 – that is pretty slow film.

    Closing the aperture means you’ll need slower shorter speed.

    ????

  2. Scott,

    Perhaps my terminology is mixed up. My professional photography friends laugh at me about this.

    Re: aperture, max aperture is wide open, right? Such as f/1.4 or f/1.8. The wider the aperture, the more light, the faster the shutter speed. The opposite of this would be closed aperture with minimal light, and slower shutter speed.

    Re: ISO, I think you are right about the speed of the film. I have only shot digital, so I am not quite down on the technical part of the ISO. Before I got my 20D, the only camera I ever had was a disposable one.

    In any case, the ideal settings for shooting waterfalls is ISO 100 and aperture of f/22 or more. I don’t know if that clarified anything. Again, I am not a pro, and I have much to learn!

  3. For shooting waterfalls, it’s actually the shutter speed that matters most. Your ISO setting is only important when light is dim (the less light, the higher the ISO needs to be). The aperture affects mostly the depth of field (how much of your picture is in focus) and the amount of light you need to have a decently exposed shot.

    For a shot that stops the water in midstream, use a high shutter speed (1/500 or higher). If you are far away from the waterfall, that would necessitate a small aperture to get a clear picture. If you are fairly close, then open the aperture up as much as you can while still getting a clear shot. If you have a depth-of-field preview button on your SLR, use it.

    For a shot that makes water flowy, use a slow shutter speed (1s ought to do it). This setting will make it imperative to use a small aperture (f/22), otherwise you’ll have too much blur.

    BTW, I’m no expert, but I love photography. If anything I’ve said turns out not to work, let me know! 🙂

    Timmy, hey we both recommended the D40 to Brian Moats. I test drove the 40X and it was a good camera. I found it had too few features for the price, so I went for the D80 two weeks ago–LOVE IT.

    *Letitia*

  4. BTW, my photos are at http://www.atthecrossphoto.com/index.php

    Please remember to type in /index.php

    I’d love to recruit you onto the site as a featured photographer. Right now, though, the site is experiencing some problems, so we’re holding off on new photographers until the problem is fixed. Your photography looks great!

    *Letitia*

  5. Timmy, next time you are in MPLS for the DG Pastor’s Conference in winter, shoot Minnehaha Falls (right in town) when it is frozen! Quite a sight! That would add an interesting twist to your collection of Falls Fotos.

  6. Dana,

    Is that the one that is down below the bridge between Minneapolis and St. Paul close to the locking dam?

    Yeah, I was hoping to get there at a time when there was ice and snow, but it was early October. The colors were great, though. I think the coldest it got was 35 degrees. I would love to get some shots of frozen falls. Unfortunately, I’m stuck in the South for the most part. I will see if I can get back up there again at a time when it is much colder.

  7. The Pastors’ Conference is in winter…you might say “the dead of winter.” Late Jan. or early Feb. I recall one year my brother and I had trouble getting over to the conference because the first three gas stations we stopped at all had frozen pumps. It was way, way below zero. Yes, you are thinking of the right Falls.

  8. Cool (pardon the pun). I was thinking about the DG NCON, which is in the Fall. Do you know what the theme of next year’s Pastor’s Conference? Just curious. I won’t be able to make it to the DGNCON this year, so perhaps I can make it to the Pastor’s Conference. Marc Heinrich, who is a worship leader with BBC, is a friend of mine. It would be great to come back up there again.

  9. I know Marc. Wonderful guy. He’s written some terrific songs. I still miss Purg. Next year’s Conference is “Pastor as Father and Son” or something like that, with John speaking on his father, Dr. William Piper, who died recently, and D.A. Carson, who will be the primary presenter and will also share about his own pastor/father. My brother, an SBC pastor in FL, and I are hoping to take our father to it. He is 82 and was in ministry for well over 50 years. The Conference is moving this year to the larger venue of the Convention Center, rather than just the Hilton ballroom.

  10. Dana,

    I stayed with Marc last year when I attended the DGNCON (with Joe Thorn). If you watched Purgatorio, Marc posted a pic of us in his basement. Here’s a really bad picture of us:

    http://purgatorio1.com/?p=525

    Ooh, I really want to attend next year’s conference about fatherhood. I remember Dr. Carson talking about his father as it was one of the most touching times of the conference. And of course Piper’s father, and I also think of John G. Paton’s father.

    I am very close to my father and grandfather, and being a new father this year, this would be a very fitting conference for this time of my life.

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