Waterfall

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Bigstan

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51
Name
Stan
Edit My Images
Yes
There's a nice little waterfall a few minutes from where I live and I've been trying ever since I got my DSLR (EOS 300D with an 18-55mm kit lens) a couple of weeks ago to get it right. I think I'm nearly there now. I went down tonight about half an hour after sunset and the light was perfect for long exposures so I had another go and came up with this:


Click for full size.

ISO 100
Shutter speed 4s
Aperture f8
Focal length 34mm


I've tinkered a bit with the levels and contrast. Any advice would be gratefully received :)
 
That is just lovely - I've got the 450 with the same lens and I've convinced myself it's not possible to get great shots with it. I'm wrong.
 
Yip - you have got that one spot on.
Really nice.
 
nice one of jesmond dene
you should get some nd filters even a polarzing filter as they will help you to get a slow shutter speed and you may not having to go down after the son has gone down
 
true_one_picture said:
Another gorgeous shot, well done with you use of shutter times - Perfect!

Phil
Click to expand...

Thank you :)

Gray21 said:
That is just lovely - I've got the 450 with the same lens and I've convinced myself it's not possible to get great shots with it. I'm wrong.
Click to expand...

Perseverance mate. I must have tried about a hundred shots of that waterfall before I got that one - just keep trying

Photogaz said:
Wow a stunning waterfall there. Have you tried increasing the green saturation around the edge? I wonder how that'd look.
Click to expand...

I'm still fairly new to Photoshop so I'm not sure how to go about selective saturation. I'm keen to learn so if you have any tips, I'd be happy to hear them. Having said that, I'm pretty happy with the shot the way it is but I'm always willing to try to improve it :)

arclight said:
Yip - you have got that one spot on.
Really nice.
Click to expand...

Many thanks.

the ghost said:
nice one of jesmond dene
you should get some nd filters even a polarzing filter as they will help you to get a slow shutter speed and you may not having to go down after the son has gone down
Click to expand...

You know the place then?

The Dene is literally two minutes down the road from me and about another 10 to that waterfall. I like walking down there and I usually take the camera with me just in case but the density of the trees can be a bit of a challenge.
Both those things are on my list (amongst many many other things ;)).
 
Hi Bigstan!

That's a nice feature to have access to, from a photographer's perspective and you've captured it nicely, I'd say :).

Just one observation, you say that you had to wait for the right light for long exposures (i.e. after sunset), but I notice from your EXIF data that you chose an aperture of f/8 :thinking:.

You should be able to stop that kit lens down a lot further than that (f/16 or f/22 perhaps?), without losing much at all from the image quality. This would give you a far longer exposure for more blur, or would enable you to shoot at a time when there is more (and warmer looking) ambient light and still get a 4 second exposure.

Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here ;), but your post kind of implied that you were having trouble in brighter light and I wondered if you'd considered using a smaller aperture setting :shrug:?
 
Naboo32 said:
Hi Bigstan!

That's a nice feature to have access to, from a photographer's perspective and you've captured it nicely, I'd say :).

Just one observation, you say that you had to wait for the right light for long exposures (i.e. after sunset), but I notice from your EXIF data that you chose an aperture of f/8 :thinking:.

You should be able to stop that kit lens down a lot further than that (f/16 or f/22 perhaps?), without losing much at all from the image quality. This would give you a far longer exposure for more blur, or would enable you to shoot at a time when there is more (and warmer looking) ambient light and still get a 4 second exposure.

Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here ;), but your post kind of implied that you were having trouble in brighter light and I wondered if you'd considered using a smaller aperture setting :shrug:?
Click to expand...

Thank you :)

The shot was taken in Tv mode so the camera set the aperture itself. I'll try it again in slightly more light and see how the camera reacts. I'm not really confident enough to try full manual yet :)
I appreciate the advice and will experiment a bit :)
 
Bigstan said:
Thank you :)

The shot was taken in Tv mode so the camera set the aperture itself. I'll try it again in slightly more light and see how the camera reacts. I'm not really confident enough to try full manual yet :)
I appreciate the advice and will experiment a bit :)
Click to expand...

No worries ;)!

Without getting too far into the techinicalities of exposure settings (although it's not really all that hard to get to grips with, when you've spent enough time with it ;)), setting your aperture (in Av mode) to f/16 instead of f/8 will allow 3 times less light into the camera. This means that the camera will have to compensate by using a shutter speed which is 3 times slower, to allow the same amount of light in total (figuratively speaking). In the case of selecting f/22 in Av mode, you're then dealing with 4 times less light than at f/8, so the exposure will last 4 times longer than it would at f/8. This will help you if you are shooting in brighter conditions, without any filters and want to get the longest possible exposure (without the camera picking a tiny aperture like f/32, where image quality may suffer :().

Of course, if you're happier in Tv mode, that's fine too :). You can just keep dialling in a slower shutter speed for a longer exposure and just remember to keep an eye on how the "F" numbers are changing. There comes a point on nearly all lenses, where you might start to lose image quailty if you use too small an aperture. The "critical" F number varies on different lenses, but I would guess that the "sweet spot" on your kit zoom would be between f/8 and f/16 :shrug:!?

Hope this helps.
 
That's a big help Naboo, thank you - Very clearly explained. I'll have a tinker with that soon.
 
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