Lady Falls

[taxi]

I took this photo this morning. Trying to master the shutter speed options. Any comments?

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gerald.davies2/temp/lady%20falls%201.jpg

PS I know its a bit blown out a base of falls. Any ideas on how to stop this or manipulate in CS:shrug:

[matty]

you need to use filters to cut the amount of light coming into the camera, not sure if you can do anything with it in PS, it looks al little soft, i suspect this is either the mirror flipping up gave it a touch of softness or the camera moved very slightly, remote release with mirror lock-up is what you need to keep it dead still.

could possibly do with a crop?

[taxi]

Does this look any better? I've sharpen up a little bit and cropped in closer. Thanks for the advise matty :thumbs: as my second effort does look a lot better.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gerald.davies2/temp/lady%20falls%202.jpg

Being new to photography, what kind of filters would you recommend for a situation like this?

[Janice]

A ND filter (Neutral density) filter will cut the light and allow you to use slow enough shutter speeds to make the water flow like you want.

Tripod and release like Matty said! :thumbs:

[RobertP]

Looking at the exif - f5.6 1/80th 400iso - you could easily get a slower shutter speed... but I don't think you really need it.

The water is fast moving and already looks blurred (in the way waterfalls usually look blurred and milky) at 1/80th. Think your problem is that the water is bright and the background isn't. You had to overexpose the water to get the background.

I'd choose a smaller aperture for better depth of field and use a tripod. Bracket the exposure and combine the best bits from each shot in editing is probably the only way to get that scene all exposed properly

[Mayer71]

C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\My Pictures\lady falls

[taxi]

Tripod and release like Matty said! :thumbs:

I did use a tripod for this shot, but I was actually standing on the river bed, being gravel, I think it did move slightly when releasing the shutter. I can see that the release would be an advantage in these situation.

The exposure compensation was set to the minimum (darkest) when I took this shot and it is a combination of 2 photos (my 1st attempt) to try and get the exposure correct. I feel I was reasonably successful with the pack ground but the water did give the issue with over exposure.

A ND filter (Neutral density) filter will cut the light and allow you to use slow enough shutter speeds to make the water flow like you want.

ND filters come in different gradients, some examples being ND400, ND85 and ND45. What do these numbers represent? Does ND400 give a darker image? (excuse terminology as I am not sure of how to describe)

[mho]

I think a little more PP in photoshop could get a bit more out of the picture, selective sharpening, and a little bit of saturation in the colours to give it a Velvia film type feel, and a little more detail in the foreground water.

here is what I came up with

Before

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gerald.davies2/temp/lady%20falls%201.jpg


After

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i150/mho1010/Visable%20Dust/ladyfalls1-1-1.jpg

The softness in the picture may have been caused by your camera moving slightly between exposures.

ND filter are usually

ND2 or ND0.3 - 1 stop effect
ND4 or ND0.6 - 2 stop effect
ND8 or ND0.9 - 3 stop effect

you can get Hard or Soft / Graduated types
Hard are completely grey, soft or graduated meen the grey starts half way up the filter and gets stronger as you co up the filter till you get to a hard grey equivalent depending on who's make they are

[taxi]

mho thanks for the advise on the ND filters.

Out of interest what changes did you make to the original image?

[mho]

Hi

1. ran the polarization filter from photoshop
2. then the natural density filters from Nik color effect 2 and adjusted the opacity of the layer to get the desired effect.
3. then tweeked the saturation to put some depth in the colours to give it a Velvia film feel to it.
4. using curves put a shallow S curve on it.
5. Using USM ran a low sharpen over the image and reduced the amout using opacity for the layer.
6. Selective sharpen to sharpen just desired parts of the rocks and edges near the water.

With it being a 800pixel image you can just see abit of artefacts appearing in the image but with the full size one you wont get that.

[taxi]

Hi
2. then the natural density filters from Nik color effect 2 and adjusted the opacity of the layer to get the desired effect.


Hi mho, I not sure what you mean by #2. Is Nik color effect 2 a separate piece of software?

[mho]

Hi mho, I not sure what you mean by #2. Is Nik color effect 2 a separate piece of software?

Yes it's a digital filter plugin package made by Nik