Rainbow Falls, North Carolina

[224]

Hey guys,
I just found this site the other day, from everything I have seen on it so far though, it looks really cool!
So I still have a lot to learn about photography, but wanted to put this picture up just to see what some people who are more advanced might think. Maybe I need to crop out part of the sides? I don't know a whole lot about photoshop, but maybe there's something I could do with that? I like the shot, but sometimes I feel like I try to do too much with shallow depth of field, may have lost too much of the waterfall?
Any tips, critiques or advice would be appreciated!




Date Taken: 7/18/2009
Camera: Canon G10
F-stop: 2.8
Exposure Time: 1/320
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 6mm

[windrider86]

It apears to me that you shot this in bright sunlight. Beacuse you've lost all detail in the petals of the flower and the waterfall is totally blown out.
Your dof is a matter of preferance. If you wanted the waterfall to be the focal point, then yes, its a wash. The flower as a focal ppont, you nailed it. If you wanted both to be in focus you'll need to change your aperature to something like F22, which will have everything in focus.
waterfalls should be shot in lower light situations. That is, if you want that misty feeling everyone is so fond of. Slower shutter speeds will bring in more lightand make it much easier to over expose the water.
I probably would crop out a lot of the dark area. Rule of thirds would play a big part in this image.

[224]

Thanks for the tips!
It was right in the middle of the day when I shot that, so it was pretty bright. I tried to have a low ISO and short enough shutter speed, if I had an even shorter shutter speed would that have helped with the details in the flower? Also, I haven't done anything in photoshop to it yet, is there anything in there that I could do to help bring that out more? (I have CS2, one of these days when I have a break from school I need to go spend a long time on the tutorials that I saw on here for editing)
As far as the rule of thirds, you are completely right. Those dark trees on the right are distracting, and the flower is off from where it needs to be. It would help to crop the right area out and maybe a little off the top too to move the flower a little bit up and more to the left to try to get it into the right spot. When I look at the image now though, I think that if I do that it will probably mess up the composition because the waterfall would be in the center and the right side of the image would be too empty.



Thanks again for your observations and tips! I have a lot to learn, but hopefully I can pick up on some good ideas around this site and keep improving