I know it's a cliche in saying this about photographing waterfalls, but a much slower shutter speed should have been used in my view. The effect would have made the whole scene much more dramatic, creating an ethereal touch to the water too...
Paul,
I cannot argue with you about milky waterfalls as that is so much a matter of the photographer's style, taste and expressivity. There's no requirement to have any "standard" mood, just the one you are creating. I do take it that dreamy tranquility seems to hover around B&W images made at extended shutter speeds.
My own pictures of waterfalls are, to be succinct, an unsolved challenge, just work in progress, I claim nothing more. But for the curious, let me share the following.
Waterfalls captivate me, but how do I bring all that home, some live "happening" thing that stretches up 30 stories up between jutting rocks, shelves, platforms and successive brotherhoods of trees. Then below, angry thunder shouting amidst tinkling, gasping and pattering of the droplets on the water and the rocks.
Every aspect of photographing waterfalls is so challenging to me, especially framing, but the shutter speed really is one area that needs thinking a lot about. After all, when one is close to the print, what scale will it be. If it's large enough, will there be sparkles from drops of water? After all, that's what one has when one is surrounded by the landscape: a roar, splashing, gurgling and lots of drops of water in the air on the way down.
I have stared, looking for milkiness, but never seen it or even imagined it. What I have come to believe, but not yet prove, is that one should take at least two sets of superimposable pictures: one at slow shutter speed and another fast enough to catch water droplets, and then bring them home to make a picture together.
That should allow each photographer to recreate the atmosphere and qualities that, to their instinct and expression shows the waterfall best.
Slow shutter speed is good for removing anything temporary.
It cannot be that the shutter of the camera, at any speed, "knows" what to draw"! In addition, the slow shutter speed, removes birds, ruins clouds, (and even the edges of trees if there's any continuous wind).
Asher