Waterfalls are one of the most popular subjects for landscape photographers, as they offer the chance to create dramatic images that capture the viewer's imagination. If you are interested in improving your waterfall photos, this great video will give you 10 helpful tips to get you on your way.
Coming to you from Photo Tom, this helpful video will give you 10 tips for taking better waterfall photos. One tip I particularly appreciated was getting lower when shooting small waterfalls. I personally love them, but here in Ohio, we do not really have any spectacularly big waterfalls; in fact, most of them around around two to five feet tall, occasionally a little higher. I learned to grab a wide angle lens and get low and close to give them a more dramatic perspective. In fact, this often meant treading into waist-deep water with my tripod (obviously, be very careful doing this and take all appropriate safety precautions for you and your equipment), but it was well worth the hassle. Check out the video above for lots of helpful tips.
And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out "Photographing The World 1: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing with Elia Locardi."
Lost me at rule number one. Why do people insist on long exposures of moving water. About the only time people freeze the action is large waves in the ocean or waves crashing on the shoreline (usually against rocks).
Yet another person who thinks that long exposure "silky water" photography is "creative."
PP had a similar article recently and I commented that I'm one of the four people on earth who shoot waterfalls with a fast shutter speed. I want to see and feel the crispness of the water droplets, not look at a bag of flour being poured over some rocks.
Someone replied that the whole blurred waterfall look that people still insist on was spawned by early cameras that couldn't shoot with fast shutter speeds, and people never thought after 100 years that there may be a better way to do it. I don't have any validation for this statement, but it's a reasonable hypothesis.
I think there are more than four of us!
I was being a bit facetious but you have to admit the preponderance of hobbyists or pros still blur that water.
One area where there may be even fewer shooting short shutter speeds is fireworks. I want my pictures to look like the fireworks I see in the sky, not some long weird streak, so my shutter speeds are not elongated like most hobbyists and pros. I suspect that long-exposure trend started the same way waterfalls did, when gear required a long shutter speed and there was no alternative.
Thanks for being one of us. I would love to think that in 50 years when I'm long gone that blurred waterfalls will be more the exception than the rule.