The Lower Empress

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Empress falls is the first real set of falls you find when making the trek down into the valley of the waters, its also one of the most spectacular and (if there could not be any more 🙂 ) its a great spot for canyoning/abseiling.

This particular spot is on the stone steps that pass over the creek and probably the most popular spot where everyone stops to grab a shot. What I really like about this spot is that nature has arranged everything quite nicely for the panoramic shot 😉 log in the centre, angled so nicely too, boulder off to the left to bookend the frame, a little glimpse of foggy foggy forest (you need to read kids book to get that joke 🙂 ) off to the left and the ferns on the right hiding that sneaky little path back out of the falls. For those familiar with the spot, you will note that I have omitted something from the frame 🙂 any guesses ? 🙂

This image was taken a month or so ago, but never processed however I heard in the news recently that a young lady lost her life at the falls just below these (Sylvia Falls), hence came back to have a look, as such, this image is for those who have not made it out of the valley. RIP.

Its a 5 shot panorama, uploaded full res.
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f14
Shutter Speed: 20s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL.

Missing Falls

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So I had this mad composition in my head which would be taken from this little knoll off to one side of the Empress Falls, I had walked down here a few times over the years so I kind knew where I wanted to be (or so I thought!). After walking down the path i spied the spot I thought would be perfect, a small amount of bushbashing (gently as always to minimise my impact) and i was there, on my knoll… now i was there the view turned out to be rubbish, could not see Empress falls and i was balancing on some slippery moss cover rock which felt like it wanted to catapult me done the valley.

Not to be deterred and after spending a painful amount of time to get to this spot i was determined to take a shot from here, so i turned around and looked the other way, which was into a nice little glen with what looks like a set of falls which only runs during some heavy rain.

In the end the shot worked out ok and I did not end up sliding down into the Valley of the Waters 🙂

9 images (portrait mode) stitched together
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f11 and Shutter Speed: 30 seconds
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL.

On the Edge

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of two worlds

I am going thru a bit of a pano phase at the moment, I really like the challenge of being able to slice a piece of scenery to show something different and to be able to capture additional elements that just can't be achieved in a single 6×4 frame.

As a true testament to the ease of pano taking, i shot a whole bunch of images (just about all panos) from this area and I reckon I was happy with just about every frame – thats pretty rare for me btw 😉

So the next time you out punching some light with that digital fang-dangle thing they call a camera or smart phone, consider the pano option and watch the world just open up to you 🙂

Happy freakin' hump day too.

View large or go home 😉

The image is made from 5 horizontal landscape images stitched together in PS, the kicker here is that simply by adjusting the exposure on each frame I could capture that sweet dark area under the foliage and also the relatively bright falls, having a cloudy day certainly helped too.

D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 32mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: varied from 5s to 30 seconds
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL.

Fallen

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tgif tomorrow 🙂

I love the way the logs have just fallen here, with alittle mad scrambling and contortionist moves i was able to get this view, the view is almost 180 degree view, i had to clone out my foot at the bottom 🙂

Exif love:
4 wide angle portrait orientation images stitched together to make a mammoth vertical pano, then cropped back a bit 😉
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 13s
ISO 100
Out front – CPL only, some logs and a few falls

In the Jungle

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ya gotta view it large, seriously, money back guarantee 😉

Exif love:
a bucketload of landscape orientation shots stitched together in PS this is about a 180degree view.
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f14
Shutter Speed: 13s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL.

Sylvia Falls

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Valley of the Waters

I really love this walk, I love it even more early in the morning, like just after the crack of dawn, its a very popular walk and thats a great thing for sure, however sometimes you just want a bit of space and not run into someone every 10 steps, hence thats where the early morning start comes in.

I trekked down to these falls shortly after sunrise, passing Empress falls on the way and passed two people, one was a fairly elderly lady coming up the valley, which meant she had probably walked all the way round from wennie falls – which is not a stroll in the park, the second was a chap about my age (thats young btw 😉 ) who was jogging, yes, you read that right.. jogging down the walk. I did not really know what to say to him, so 'gday mate' was about it, with a bit of disbelief admiration 🙂

Anyway's, the Sylvia Falls is a very popular photographic spot too, super easy to compose and most people go for the vertical, i did too when I first visited 🙂 however this time, and its kinda a phase I am going thru, i want to capture a pano of the falls, giving a bit of texture and context to the scene, showing the falls (which are very cool on the black rocks ), the drop to the right and also the sharp incline on the left where the path is cut in.

Strangely enough panoramas are actually quite easy to compose and in my opinion much more forgiving than say the standard 6:4 format, I say this since the brain reads from left to right (in most languages anyway), thus the image taker has already the advantage that the viewer will natural flow thru image when looking at it, that said, its also very easy in panos to create that dreaded 'big empty space' so getting right up close and personal can often work much better – see the next image from this same spot for an example…

There is one key flaw in this image and I blame photoshop 🙂 I cloned out / content aware filled the hand rail on the left, but by geez it did a rubbish job and I did not notice until the very end, I really should go back and fix that…

Exif love:
7 landscape orientation shots stitched together in PS
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 28mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 5s to 13s (note I changed the shutter speed as i took them to control teh exposure as I went around)
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL.