waterfalls

[Marija]

Hi!
In place where I live there are plenty of small beautiful waterfalls and few rivers which gives me opportunity to learn and practice photography with such wonderful subjects.
I've done some searching, reading about how to take a photo of waterfall but most of the explanations refer to shutter speed, tripod, time of day... so I'm not sure about composition. I've seen numerous photos with a numerous approaches and now I'm a little bit confused How to (in terms of composition) take a photo of a waterfall? There are plenty of narrow but higher, wide but not that high waterfalls and so on...
It's clear to me what I achieve with adjusting the shutter speed, but unfortunately I don't have a tripod (it's on my to-buy list) so my camera is handheld for now.
I intend to practice with waterfalls and hope to improve my skills (if I have any skills in photography), so any advices are welcome!

Thank you in advance!

Here is an photo I took this weekend. Actually, this small waterfall is just 3 minutes walk from my home. You can make suggestion and advices based on it.




Not sure why the Exif data is not shown on Flickr. Don't have original photo right now, but this I remember :
shutter priority mode
shutter speed 0,125
WB cloudy
no flash
It's Olympus E 520 with 14-42mm lens

[OsmosisStudios]

That water must have been moving VERY fast.

It's a bit overexposed. The water is losing detail in the highlights: much of it is white.

WHen you get a tripod, you'll want to get a Neutral Density (ND) filter to go with it. That'll allow you to set even longer shutterspeeds and get that whispy water look.

[Marija]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

That water must have been moving VERY fast.

Why did you say that? Because of shutter speed I set - silky water?
Interesting is that this small river actually is very cold, fast and so pure that one can drink it.

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

It's a bit overexposed. The water is losing detail in the highlights: much of it is white.

Yes, I agree. I shot in RAW, so when I was doing some pp I tried different exposure compensation but there are still the same white highlights. So what I did wrong when I took the photo?

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

WHen you get a tripod, you'll want to get a Neutral Density (ND) filter to go with it. That'll allow you to set even longer shutterspeeds and get that whispy water look.

Thank you for advice and replaying

[OsmosisStudios]

Shutter speed is a bit quick. 1/8s isnt FAST, but its not slow either.

The highlights are likely not recoverable. If it's overexposed when you take the shots, you cant recover it just in RAW. You can adjust the exposure, but you cant get information where information doesnt exist.

[CatcherT]

Yes, I agree. I shot in RAW, so when I was doing some pp I tried different exposure compensation but there are still the same white highlights. So what I did wrong when I took the photo?

With photography, I think the colors start with the snap of the pic, PP is great with some things, but with real true color of nature its the photographer not necessarilly what you can achieve with photo shop. The beauty with the digital era is trying all different things, I remember when I first started using a computer, I would ask my son "how to" all day long, the best advice he gave me was to just click on everything in order to achieve what I wanted, same with your camera, shoot a lot of pics with different settings, do not erase any of them until you've looked at every single one on the puter.

[wulf]

If you are handholding the camera, that will limit the opportunities for transforming the flowing water into ghostly silkiness. On the other hand, you also need low light conditions or some kind of light reducing (neutral density) filter to do that and avoid over exposure and it is certainly not the only approach.

Specifically addressing compositional techniques, I think it pays to think carefully about your framing. In the shot above, I would be inclined to crop out the sky at the top (which is blown out to white and doesn't add any richness). By doing this kind of framing in camera, you can concentrate on getting the exposure you want for the water without the sky (which is relatively bright) confusing matters.

What I do like about the particular composition above is the way the waterfall flows diagonally one way and the river at the bottom seems to rush the opposite way, which captures the idea of movement. That is something you could exploit in further pictures as powerful movement is a key part of the essence of a waterfall.

Wulf

[Marija]

Thanks for replying!

Originally Posted by CatcherT

With photography, I think the colors start with the snap of the pic, PP is great with some things, but with real true color of nature its the photographer not necessarilly what you can achieve with photo shop.

Colors in the photo are, actually, real. All I did in PP is trying to see what would I get with different exposure compensation (in a program which came with my camera) and applied Unsharp mask and slightly slightly increased saturation and contrast (with Gimp)

Originally Posted by wulf

If you are handholding the camera, that will limit the opportunities for transforming the flowing water into ghostly silkiness. On the other hand, you also need low light conditions or some kind of light reducing (neutral density) filter to do that and avoid over exposure and it is certainly not the only approach.

I'm aware that my gear limits my options, but also, from the place I'm standing in the world of photography, more problems are caused by lack of my knowledge... so I'll try to do as much as possible with the gear I own, which includes to understand, among else, what settings I need to try for pictures of waterfalls. For now, I know that the slowest shutter speed I can achieve with handholding is 1/8s, and that I need some serious help
Regarding light conditions, I have now a bit of situation. It's snowing!?

Originally Posted by wulf

addressing compositional techniques, I think it pays to think carefully about your framing. In the shot above, I would be inclined to crop out the sky at the top (which is blown out to white and doesn't add any richness). By doing this kind of framing in camera, you can concentrate on getting the exposure you want for the water without the sky (which is relatively bright) confusing matters.

I originally cropped out that part of the photo in PP, but because I intend to post the photo I undid the cropping hoping someone will say something about that part. So now I know that the framing is supposed to do when I'm taking the photo, not after.

[wulf]

Originally Posted by Marija

I originally cropped out that part of the photo in PP, but because I intend to post the photo I undid the cropping hoping someone will say something about that part. So now I know that the framing is supposed to do when I'm taking the photo, not after.

Not entirely - sometimes you can't get close enough to frame the way you want, sometimes you want a different aspect ratio and sometimes you simply want more margin for error.

However, if you can get the shot and the aspect ratio is right there is a lot to be said for getting it right in camera. You get the maximum detail from the optics of the camera rather than applying a "digital zoom" by cropping in and you save yourself some post-processing time. Most importantly, you can assess what is in the frame and try taking the photo from different positions and angles to get the best balance: that is something that is much more limited in post because you only have two dimensions left to work in.

Wulf

[Marija]

Wolf, thank you very much for your time and advices!