NYFalls.com Talk

Share your waterfall photography tips here.



A few to start:

Use a circular polarizing filter to cut down on the reflections on wet rock (you can buy circular polarizers here)

Use a tripod for those long exposures.

Shoot on overcast days to minimize strong shadow-to-highlight contrast.

Under-expose to keep the water highlights from blowing out. Shooting in RAW helps you recover your shadows if they tend to under-expose because of this.

Watch your white balance... often cameras will create blue water if you meter right on the water.

An exposure time of 1/6 sec is perfect for water with a great sense of volatility.

Tall waterfalls, like Taughannock, or waterfalls with a lot of swirling suds in the whirlpool may need exposures of more than 2 seconds to get the silky effect looking right.

Large, heavy waterfalls, such as Niagara Falls, look best when captured at high shutter speeds of 1/100 or more.

Try to include more non-moving objects (stones, trees, people) in the frame than there is moving water. Often the surroundings are more interesting than the moving water itself.

A white balance of 5200 to 5400k is a nice goal for frothy water on a slightly overcast day.

Don't drive 82 miles to Fillmore Glen without your memory cards.

I would say always check your equipment before you go.

-Getting the best compositions will usually involve getting your feet (or more ) wet.

- Don't forget about shooting waterfalls in the winter. Usually sunny days don't work well for waterfall photography, but in the winter, the snow will reflect light, evening out the exposure. For example:

Oakland Run.

Use a ND filter to slow down the shutter speed when there is too much light. Don't set your f stop too high or you will loose clarity, though a poor filter will decrease sharpness too.

For a different look, use a high speed shutter to capture the chaos. Also, the background drops out.

I generally use the high speed shutter on large falls, like letchworth, taughannock, and Niagara.... smoothing the large falls is like trying to tame a savage beast... it's just against it's nature.