Horseshoe Falls

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I have a image of the same falls from way back in 2013, but its taken from behind the waterfall, I would link it here, but google+ has just become craptastic and you cannot find your freakin' lunch let alone a post from a few years back. Flickr on the other hand makes it easy, so here's a link to it on there 🙂 https://flic.kr/p/eYyVAD

Anyway, the relatively minor amount of water coming over the falls meant that I could get right up close and personal with the falls, it was a bit of a challenge to capture the full dynamic range, even with the overcast day there was plenty of shadow under the ledge. This shot is a 4 shot panorama with each frame bracketed, the picture then manually blended to maintain the shadows.

4 shot (landscape orientation) panorama

D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f14 and Shutter Speed: 13s (normal exp) 1.6s (under exp) 30s (over exp)
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL & ND

Edith Falls

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I needed to get my photography fix on the weekend, waterfalls have been on the mind with all the great rainfall we have had lately, however this rain was followed up with some crazy hot days and pretty well dried everything out 😉

Anyway, not to be deterred, i punched on and picked some random locations from googlemaps, one of which was Edith Falls at Woodford, I think i must have taken the long route after parking the car, however it was mostly on fire trails which made for a walk which was nice change from collecting spiderwebs on my face 🙂 Edith Falls is pretty small, there was very little water flowing over it, however this kinda worked to my advantage (well thats the story I am sticking to) since I could get up real close without getting my toes wet.

It was fairly late in the afternoon and quite overcast, the falls are buried deep under vegetation with only the trickle of water exposed which means you get this nicely selective light applied to the falls. This shot gives the impression that the area is more spacious then it really is, i was actually crouched under the branch you can see on the right things were pretty tight, however the panorama option just opened the frame up and let the two bigass rocks gently lead you right into the falls.

4 shot (landscape orientation) panorama

D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 30s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL & ND

History

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Some falls in Mt Field National Park, Tasmania
I was browsing though some of +Matt Glastonbury's great imagery of Tasmania, in particular this one https://plus.google.com/100022806374728014874/posts/LAw9K8vV3L2 when it jogged my memory of trip down there several years ago.

This was back when I was pretty clueless on how to use a camera but one thing I did know what to do was take pano's and vertical ones featured every now and then, more often than not they would not stitch correctly 🙁 however, step forward a few years and I now have the knowledge (and software) to beat them over the head a bit more to achieve what I originally saw 🙂

This image was simply two images stitched vertically, originally never even processed, much like quite a few images that sit in my library unfortunately.

Anyway, i remember this trip well, I had just bought myself a new lens (the Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8) and a circular Polarizer to go with it – both of which I still use and abuse regularly 🙂 In hindsight a UWA lens would have been more helpful, but hey thats life.

2 frame Vertical Panorama.
Exif/setup data:
D80 (yep thats right..my trusty old D80) coupled with the Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 @17mm
Aperture: f/13 and Shutter Speed: 8 seconds for the top part and 10 seconds for the bottom part
Out front : HOYA screw in circular polariser
Probably lucky it was taken in RAW, i mixed and matched during this trip 🙂

Deer Pool

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View Large and fill that 16:9 screen with what its meant to be filled with – panorama love 🙂 – if you can find a deer in there you win a prize 😉
Its very interesting story how deer ended up in the Royal National Park and their subsequent survival, decline and then expansion over the last 100 odd years. I would never had though it that difficult to eradicate the relatively small number from what is, really a pretty small park – I guess logistics, process and bureaucracy have played an important role here.

Anyway, whatever the case with the deer, there is still one place named after them, that is, Deer Pool, a nice serene pool with a small waterfall and beach, btw that waterfall looks like it would make a mad waterslide, pity about the big rock at the bottom to take your tailbone out 😉

It was quite a difficult set of falls to shoot for me, the size of the falls within the frame is quite small and I needed to zoom in quite a bit to really fill the frame, as such, when all else fails, pano it 🙂

3 shot panorama view.
Techie data:
D7000 with Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 @ 45mm – Aperture: f/13 and Shutter Speed: multiple ( 3 brackets) – however I did only end up using one image – the lighting was diffused and even enough that a single raw file had all the required dynamic range needed (for me)
out front -Hoya screw in circular polariser and Hoya ND8 Neutral Density filter

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

The Darkes Swirl

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The dynamic range here was pretty large , just that section in the top part of the frame needed some extra help hence the multiple exposures, below that point it was pretty much a single exposure. I really wanted to capture a small amount of that dappled light filtering thru the rocks and trees to illuminate and provide a glow at the top of the frame.

The swirl in the foreground did not really want to play ball, it took several attempts to try and capture a circular motion however, nature wanted more dogbone shapes etc… :-/

Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm – Aperture: f/16 and Shutter Speed: 16s, 4s & 1s
out front -Hoya screw in circular polariser and Hoya ND8 Neutral Density filter

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Darkes Forest Waterfall

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View large

The multiple falls over the various rock levels made for a perfect panorama composition, the sun was in full force but limited to lighting up the upper falls.

This is but a small portion of the falls, there is basically a whole extra layer above this, each with its unique and very lush set of ferns.

Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 16mm – Aperture: f/13 and Shutter Speed: multiple ( 3 brackets)
out front -Hoya screw in circular polariser and Hoya ND8 Neutral Density filter

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Waterfall Fantasy

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View large, you won't regret it, money back guarantee 🙂
The walk in and climb to the bottom of the falls was not so much as a fantasy as a nightmare 🙂

Madden Falls, definitely not a fair weather photographer location, which btw was wanted this particular day, a nice easy walk and a sweet set of falls. Well, the walk to the top of the falls was easy, boardwalk even!, however it dumped you at a lookout possie at the top of the falls which was a pretty ugly, thus some bush bashing was required.
Armed with a gripless pair of wet sneakers and a rough plan of where to go to get to the bottom, I slid, scrambled, climbed down a tree and not so gracefully arrived at the bottom of the falls, 30 minutes later 🙂

It was however, worth it, what a great set of falls tucked away with no one around, well not down here anyway.

This was the last shot of the day and the moment the first bit of cloud swept across, prior to that it was nothing but blue sky. Rarely do i get conditions like this for water shots, however I really love that long exposure sky/cloud coupled with a waterfall. The wind was blowing pretty hard up top and provided the perfect amount of cloud movement to generate the sweep of clouds. I did have to clone out one tree up top which was nothing but a blurry mess.

Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm – Aperture: f/11 and Shutter Speed: 61.9s
out front -Hoya screw in circular polariser and B+W screw in neutral density filter (10 stops).

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Between the Trees

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This afternoon there was absolutely beautiful light coupled with low lying clouds being funneled up the ravine (i think I can safely call it that – pretty serious depth and very narrow). I had traveled to these falls (Carrington) to try and find a nice location with the fall back option of just taking a cliche shot of the falls, which usually the common lookouts provide, noting that this was a first time I had been here.

The steady wind was flowing around the trees and the mist coming through the scene sporadically, the light last a few minutes and I tried a different composition to try and capture the light, mist and surrounding foliage.

3 shot landscape orientation panorama.
Techie data:
D7000 with Nikkor 17-55 mm f2.8 @ 17mm Aperture: f/13 Shutter 1 seconds
Hoya screw in circular polariser out front.

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Adelina Falls -Lawson

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So once again, its a friday night and one hands rocking the tickles to sleep which means it must be time for some more image processing, I mean, really what else can i do 😉

I took several images from Adelina Falls in Lawson and I spent quite some time walking around the falls (which incidentally are not very large) to try and find that sweet composition. I even got up around the trees off to the right of this frame to try and encapsulate the entirety of the falls, however it was not to be and as such I opted to chop off the upper part of the falls and work with the lower part at a particular angle where the light created a glow over the veil of water coming down.

This image was a series of vertical portrait orientation shots stitched together, i did actually end up cropping pretty heavily to achieve the composition I wanted, however given the large number of frames this was not a problem (from a resolution POV anyway).

I have been saving this one up trying to work out the best way to process it and capture the rocks on the left and the delicate water flow. A interesting side note, here is another good example of the polariser in action, not so much in a positive sense though. The ferns on the left are nicely 'polarised' and the reflected light removed, however the ferns on the right are not and as such come across more white and washed out..

Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm- Aperture: f/8 and Shutter Speed: 8s, 1.5s & 30s
out front -Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops).

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Weeping rock Pano

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Up close and personal with the Weeping Rock Falls in the Blue Mountains of NSW, Australia.

Where has this location been all my life 😉 ? what a great little set of falls, I could spend all day here, some many great little compositions and angles, from detail to wide angle it has it all and… the big and.. its out in nature and part of a really sweet walk at leura.

Techie data:
4 shot (landscape orientation) panorama.
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm Aperture: f/8 Shutter 20 seconds. – Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops)

Upper Cataract Falls – the new ice-skating practice rink ;)

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View Large
Mental note for next time – old sneakers with no grip are not the most suitable footwear for traversing a mossy slippery set of falls such as these, how I got to this spot without going arse over tits is beyond me 🙂 I think booties with nails in the bottom would be more useful.

Nonetheless the beautiful deep colour in the rocks and the texture and veins made it worthwhile, not to mention the veil of wispy water flowing over the edge.

Techie data:
4 shot (landscape orientation) panorama.
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm Aperture: f/13 Shutter 8, 2 & 30 seconds. – Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops)

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Lower Cataract Falls

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A difficult little set of falls to shoot, the time of day and the light made things a bit tricky and as such I opted for a really close tight panorama view to try and convey the scene with its many over hanging ferns, branches and water seemingly dropping from the bright clouded sky.

I could almost reach out and touch the fern on the right, a bracketed panorama to achieve the desired dynamic range and encapsulate the pool and surrounds.

Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm Aperture: f/8 Shutter 8, 2 & 30 seconds. The bright frame was only used to bring a fraction of detail to that really shadowed overhang to the side of the falls
out front – Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops)

I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed and always appreciate the time people take to have a look, plus and/or comment.

Foggy Glen

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View large

This is from a spot which I refer to as the fair-weather photographers spot 😉 if your looking for a quiet accessible waterfall then this is your location, a short walk down some steps and there is a nice sheltered spot to setup your tripod and take in the beauty of this small final waterfall in the Leura Cascades.
I have taken photos of this waterfall a total of 3 times now and each time I have come away with differing images do the conditions but also due changes in the way I view a scene and compose it. To be honest I don't think I have necessarily improved on previous attempts, moreso just generated different images 🙂

The falls are quite small and required quite a wide angle lens, in this case, rather than run with a single image I decided to try and encapsulate the scene pretty well in its entirety, well as much as my pano format would allow! As always a scene like this, even on a rainy overcast day has quite some dynamic range in the light, as such i bracketed each shot in this panorama, this meant I had alot more control of those shadowy areas 🙂 There was quite a few portrait orientation shots (about 8) taken for this and then it was cropped fairly heavily from the top and bottom.

Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm Aperture: f/8 Shutter 20, 6 & 30 seconds
ISO 160
out front – Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops)

As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed

Bums on the edge

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Flow to me
Sometimes to achieve that composition there is only one way to do it – wet feet and bum out over the edge of the next waterfall, whilst confident that a missplaced step would send me over the edge i had some comfort in the fact it was only a few feet down 😉 not like the falls below that 🙂

Anyway, itsa great little spot Leura Cascades and whilst you can go for the fair-weather positions there is plenty of scope to reach out and pull a composition of the cascades that has some originality to it 🙂

Techie data:
D7000 with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ 11mm Aperture: f/8 Shutter 10 seconds
ISO 160 (don't ask me why 🙂 ) this was one of the first shots so the old brain was a bit fuzzy 😉
out front – Hoya screw in circular polariser and neutral density filter (3 stops)

As always, I welcome any suggestions, comments and improvements to my photography, they are always warmly welcomed