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Waterfalls and Lakeshore landscapes.

JohnZeman

New member
Greetings all, this is my first post in OPF and I thought I'd make my first contribution here since I have something coming up next week.

In a few days I will be heading to the south shore of Lake Superior where I plan to take a lot of lakeshore shots. Also some Apostle Island shots from the deck of a cruise tour boat, and a number of waterfall shots in the surrounding area state parks. I'll have my Canon Digital Rebel XT with a EF 17-85mm USM IS lens with me along with an alternate 75-300mm lens. WhiBal, the sensor brush cleaning system, a couple tripods, and a few other general odds and ends will also be my companions.

I'll be shooting raw mode exclusively, most likely at ISO 100, and plan to use a tripod for the waterfall shots so I can slow the shutter down.

Anyone have other suggestions for equipment and/or shooting technique?

(If not, at least I got to break the ice in this section of the new forum! :)

John
 
Hi John!

JohnZeman said:
Greetings all, this is my first post in OPF and I thought I'd make my first contribution here since I have something coming up next week.

In a few days I will be heading to the south shore of Lake Superior where I plan to take a lot of lakeshore shots. Also some Apostle Island shots from the deck of a cruise tour boat, and a number of waterfall shots in the surrounding area state parks. I'll have my Canon Digital Rebel XT with a EF 17-85mm USM IS lens with me along with an alternate 75-300mm lens. WhiBal, the sensor brush cleaning system, a couple tripods, and a few other general odds and ends will also be my companions.

I'll be shooting raw mode exclusively, most likely at ISO 100, and plan to use a tripod for the waterfall shots so I can slow the shutter down.

Anyone have other suggestions for equipment and/or shooting technique?

(If not, at least I got to break the ice in this section of the new forum! :)

John

Let me be the first to welcome you to OPF!

It sounds like you've already done some reasonable preparation. I'm more of a bird and wildlife guy, but here's a thought or two:

You didn't specifically mention filters, but a Polarizing filter, and graduated and non-graduated neutral density filters might come in handy as well.

And I agree completely with the choice to shoot Raw exclusively. With this in mind, make sure you have adequate storage, both in the field to cover a day's shooting, and preferably duplicate storage for the trip overall.

Have fun!

Best regards,
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Well Don beat me to it, but welcome again from me anyway!

My suggestion might be to ask about the need for several tripods. You might find a bean bag useful for a ledge on the boat; it might be perfect.

Try also faster speeds for the waterfalls. I question the sometimes artificial slushy foam that people like to show. Some water movement can look great with droplets suspended in mid air. I think one should do both. You might find that you prefer one look on a waterfalll and another for rapids.

I'd also like to know of any wild life you see as I wonder what is the state of that habitat now.

Enjoy your trip

Asher :)
 

JohnZeman

New member
Thanks for the warm welcome Don and Asher. :)

Don I'm in good shape for having plenty of storage, including redundancy. I'm taking 5 gigs of cards, a laptop, and a pocket external hard drive. Filters are something that I'm admittedly very weak on, the one I have is a UV haze and that's mainly to protect my lens. I understand a polarizing filter helps to take the surface glare out of water, but have no idea what the graduated and non-graduated neutral density filters would do. Can you please elaborate on them a bit? Thanks.

Asher, I will shoot the falls at widely varying shutter speeds now. Had you not suggested it I might not have though, but what you say makes sense. I'll also let you know if I see some interesting wildlife up there.

Thanks again guys. :)

John
 

JohnZeman

New member
Oh, I forgot to address Asher's question about the several tripods. Actually I'll probably just take two, a monopod and my regular one. We'll be driving and will have plenty of room in the car so I'm taking anything that I might possibly have a need for.

John
 
Hi John,
JohnZeman said:
I understand a polarizing filter helps to take the surface glare out of water, but have no idea what the graduated and non-graduated neutral density filters would do. Can you please elaborate on them a bit? Thanks.

The idea with neutral density filters is to reduce the amount of light entering your camera. In a waterfall, when you do want slow shutter speeds, depending on how bright the scene is, this may not be possible. Too much light means faster shutter speeds. In that situation, a 1 or 2 diopter (non-graduated) ND filter will enable you to reduce the shutter speed 1 or 2 stops, to get the effect you want.

The graduated ND filter accomplishes the same thing, but the 'graduated' part means that the amount of ND effect will change from a maximum on one side of it, to a minimum on the other side. The situation where this is useful is a landscape shot where you have a bright sky on top, and a dark or shadowed foreground. Depending on the the light and time of day, the amount of difference between the light and dark (the dynamic range, for practical purposes), is too much and your camera's sensor (or film) cannot capture it all. The result is either the foreground will be blocked up and underexposed, or the bright highlights in the sky will be blown-out or clipped.

By using the graduated ND filter, you can decrease the light in the top of the field, while keeping the light from the foreground, effectively reducing the dynamic range, and making it more feasible for your sensor to capture the full range. You might still want to take several exposures, using different settings (some to optimize for the sky, others to optimize for the foreground) and combine them in Photoshop.

Hope this helps, but if it doesn't, don't hesitate to repost.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
4 points:

Don, have you found any differences between different brands of ND filter and which to you like best?

What is the effect of Polarizing filters or UV filters?

Can these be combined?

If you ARE using several filters, then do you ever forgo the ND filter and instead use a series of bracketed exposures and then combine images in PS?

Asher :)
 
Hi Asher,

I'll do some landscape shooting but my primary area of experience is bird and wildlife. Until Alain ore more experienced landscape photographers are able to reply here, though, I guess you'll be stuck with me. My responses are based more on theory than on practice/experience.

Don, have you found any differences between different brands of ND filter and which to you like best?

I'll have to defer to other opinions here, as I don't have significant experience and knowledge here. The usual principles apply here: the more expensive ones will usually be best, for the same difference that a more expensive lens will outperform a less expensive less (other things being equal) due to higher quality glass.


What is the effect of Polarizing filters or UV filters?

UV Filters will theoretically enhance contrast under hazy conditions, and many leave them in place as a form of physical protection for the front element of your lens, but I don't believe these are used much in practice. Alain, please correct me if I mis-state anything here.

Polarizing filters will definitely darken the sky, under the right conditions. The maximum effect of a polarizer is at 90 degrees to the angle of the sun. So if the sun is directly behind you, the scene directly in front will show little effect from the polarizer. Rotate your orientation 90 degrees, and the effect will be dramatically different.

This can create a problem when using wide angle lenses, where the effect of the polarizer will vary across the field of view of the shot, creating an effect not present in the actual scene.

The polarizer will also help to some degree with reflections off bright surfaces under bright sun, which can also help tame dynamic range.


Can these be combined?

Theoretically yes, but you are also combining the optical imperfections present in any filter, and you may create some vignetting problem due to the combined physical length of the filters. So in practical terms, it would probably be inadvisable to combine these two filters.

If you ARE using several filters, then do you ever forgo the ND filter and instead use a series of bracketed exposures and then combine images in PS?

Speaking from a theoretical standpoint, I would be inclined to think that using PS with a series of bracketed exposures will give you the best results, as it will cover a wider dynamic range than can be achieved with a single shot using filters. This might be a problem if there are trees, leaves or other elements that will be moving or change position from one shot to the next, so it won't be applicable in all situations.

Another thought is if you're shooting Raw, and only have the one image to work from: you can "develop" the image multiple times, 'exposing' for the shadows or the highlights, and then combine these in PS. You won't match the dynamic range from multiple bracketed exposures, but will enable you to maximize what the one image contains.
 

JohnZeman

New member
Thanks for the great information guys, this helps me out a lot.

Now I need to go filter shopping before we leave on our trip. :)

John
 
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