[fionaB]

Spent the day in new Lanark Heritage Village and walked up the clyde to the Clyde falls, the biggest of which is Corra Linn. an absolutely fabulous waterfall.........
i just wish my pictures did it justice but unfortuantely me thinks this is another genre that i need to work on! lol

[bugdog]

I like them but I like the colour ones better
Beautiful scenes

[fionaB]

thanx Bug. have to agree with you. the mono was an experiment that didnt work! lol

Fi

[P-E]

Colour ones for me this time too..........that water certainly looks powerful

[Rob Barron]

The two coloured falls shots are good Fi, second of the two captures the raw power of the falls nicely. Not keen on the shot of Lanark, it's way too busy though i can see what you were aiming for.

With waterfalls, if you want to get the soft water effect, you have to choose a shutter that counters the speed of the water. Hence if it is fast moving water you go for a relatively fast shutter spped, like 1/4 second whereas if it is slow moving, you might go up to a second or even longer. The thing that makes these shots work though is having static objects that appear pin sharp as a contrast to the water. That is hard with this fall because the volume of water is so large there are no rocks and things in the middle for the water to flow around.

Markulous has done several of these as you know and he's produced some excellent work. Try each shot several times, each with a different shutter speed. I think I am right in saying you haven't got the filters you really need for this sort of thing yet so that makes it harder. You really need a 0.9/x4 Neutral density filter to allow you to go for a tiny aperture and a slow shutter speed even when it is sunny.

Practice makes perfect and you've made a perfectly good start

Cheers,
Rob

[Dabhand16]

Originally Posted by Rob Barron

You really need a 0.9/x4 Neutral density filter to allow you to go for a tiny aperture and a slow shutter speed even when it is sunny.


Cheers,
Rob

Rob, I hesitate to query this, but a x4 ND filter to get a tiny apature? I thought that the idea of these filters was to reduce the light entering the lens so you can open it up to reduce DoF.

[Rob Barron]

Originally Posted by Dabhand16

Rob, I hesitate to query this, but a x4 ND filter to get a tiny apature? I thought that the idea of these filters was to reduce the light entering the lens so you can open it up to reduce DoF.

I was right in what I meant but I explained it badly so forgive me.

My point was that on a bright sunny day, even using f22 it is hard to get a shutter speed below about 1/30th second which is too fast when trying to blur slow moving water. We want to get it much lower, down to maybe 1/2 or even 1 second. So, despite using the smallest aperture (which gives you the best depth of field, important in this type of shot) you still need a strong ND filter to cut the light down.

Why a good DoF? Because if you don't, the background will blur off and the effect of the blurred water will be diminished. Obviously this depends on how much depth there is in the scene. If it goes a long way back, blurring can be good as long as there is some pin sharp areas around and in the water for contrast.

I was rushing my postings yesterday trying to catch up after a few days away so apologies for not being clear. Hope it now makes sense.

Cheers,
Rob