[BruceBanner]

Where I live I have an abundance of fantastic waterfalls at my disposal to shoot. I have yet to feel satisfied with any of my results in trying to obtain the desired look I am trying to achieve. It strikes me that a number of routes could be taken to achieve interesting results, and I wanted to open up this discussion to see what strategies going into shooting a waterfall that our members here might use/adopt.

I'm specifically looking at HDR or bracketed shots of waterfalls with long exposures, I feel even a narrow 0.3+/- exposure adjustment can assist with the areas I live in.
Lets ignore for one minute the equipment the user has, or the focusing/framing etc, for the moment I'm just concerned with how to do the shoot.

Last time (a week ago or so) I did a shoot, I bracketed a 5 long exposure shots of 30secs each (to maximize the milky water long exposure effect) and then merge the lot. It was a pretty still day, but once merged it was apparent that foliage was still blurred due to small movements.

Today I thought I was being clever and avoid this error but apparently the strategy I tried to adopt also produced less than ideal results. Today I took a 5 bracketed shot (EV+/-0.3) and this time had the shutter speed fairly quick, the idea was to just try and capture the surroundings and not the water in a hdr fashion with minimal ghosting/blur.
I then thought the clever thing to do would be to bang a ND filter on the lens and take a nice long exposure of 0 EV value, something like 1-2mins (at the same aperture value).

The post processing strategy was to either;

a) hdr merge the 5 quicker exposure shots, then stack the hdr with the long exposure shot and erase the water and replace with the long exposure or..

b) stack the 0 EV quick shutter speed with the 0 EV long exposure shot, erase the slow water and replace with smooth long exposure water, and then merge this shot with the remaining 4 bracketed shots.

Things didn't go to plan however. Going down route a) I got dark unexposed water (compared to the vibrant hdr merged water), and I'm not skillfull enough with PS to correct this...
Route b) just didn't play ball at all... i may have done something wrong but the merge went awful..

Either way, it all got me thinking about how there really must be a right way to go about this type of shot and I thought I'd ask here first.

PS, my results today (not much of a 'waterfall' but I think you get the point;



PPS Ok.. I am a bit slow to pick up on these things but I was curious to see today that when I did the bracketed shot my Pentax K-1 was adjusting the aperture between the shots! Surely this is the worst thing for it to change?! It's not surprising for example then to see a 'blurry' effect if the foliage is a stack of different apertures!? Surely a slight reduction in shutter speed times would be better than adjusting aperture?! Is there a way to tell my K1 to behave better in this regard?

Cheers,

Bruce

[Tas]

I am a bit slow to pick up on these things but I was curious to see today that when I did the bracketed shot my Pentax K-1 was adjusting the aperture between the shots!

Yes, it's better to have bracketing adjust the shutter speed instead of aperture. The way to ensure this happens is to have the camera in aperture priority mode when bracketing.

[BruceBanner]

Yes, it's better to have bracketing adjust the shutter speed instead of aperture. The way to ensure this happens is to have the camera in aperture priority mode when bracketing.

Ah I see... I was in Manual I believe. So... step one, Av mode lol, we're off to a flying start!

[Rondec]

30 seconds seems kind of long to me. Typically when I shoot waterfalls I'm trying for something more in the 1/2 to 1 second range (if I'm hand held 1/8 second will work). For bracketing shots, I typically use Av mode, set the aperture for adequate depth of field and iso and then let the camera take it from there.

I know we had talked about it on another thread, but using the multiple exposure with the average feature is another option -- keeping the individual exposures with a relatively fast shutter speed, but enough of them that you get a blurred effect in the water.

[Na Horuk]

I think the biggest problem might be the light itself. You are at the location at the wrong time, so you don't get the kind of light you want. You can try coming early morning or just before sunset, maybe bring your own light or reflector to make the water shine more; to control the light

You should also have ND filter. I would just use tripod (+2sec timer) and do three long exposures and merge them to HDR. But honestly, you might not need HDR if you start with good light. Just shoot raw and use Lightroom or RawTherapee (it has inbuilt tonemapping feature, makes photo look like HDR). You can add a polarizing filter and rotate it so that water is less or more shiny (whatever you want) though this might not work that well if water is very choppy. So, I would just take one raw shot with ETTR (Exposing to the right) and fiddle with that, before deciding to add complexity by blending.

Edit: Oh and you need there to be water. Different seasons mean different amount of flow. If waterfall is almost empty, even long exposure blending won't make it look full, wild and exciting. in the supplied photo you could probably fill a bucket and release it upstream, then take the shot as the water rolls down in front of camera

[BrianR]

Ah I see... I was in Manual I believe. So... step one, Av mode lol, we're off to a flying start!

On the k5 series, the variable that changes in bracketing mode while in Manual mode is controlled by what the green button is set to do. It's under "E-Dial Programming". Mine is set to "TvShift" and it's the shutter speed that changes during a bracket. The k-1 may behave the similarily?

[BruceBanner]

30 seconds seems kind of long to me. Typically when I shoot waterfalls I'm trying for something more in the 1/2 to 1 second range (if I'm hand held 1/8 second will work). For bracketing shots, I typically use Av mode, set the aperture for adequate depth of field and iso and then let the camera take it from there.

I know we had talked about it on another thread, but using the multiple exposure with the average feature is another option -- keeping the individual exposures with a relatively fast shutter speed, but enough of them that you get a blurred effect in the water.

I think you're right, that milky effect doesn't really get more pronounced the longer you leave the shutter open, but rather the volume and speed of water coming from the fall dictates the look.
I have tried exposure stacking before for blurred water effect, but really I find the results better with a ND filter applied.

I think the biggest problem might be the light itself. You are at the location at the wrong time, so you don't get the kind of light you want. You can try coming early morning or just before sunset, maybe bring your own light or reflector to make the water shine more; to control the light

You should also have ND filter. I would just use tripod (+2sec timer) and do three long exposures and merge them to HDR. But honestly, you might not need HDR if you start with good light. Just shoot raw and use Lightroom or RawTherapee (it has inbuilt tonemapping feature, makes photo look like HDR). You can add a polarizing filter and rotate it so that water is less or more shiny (whatever you want) though this might not work that well if water is very choppy. So, I would just take one raw shot with ETTR (Exposing to the right) and fiddle with that, before deciding to add complexity by blending.

Edit: Oh and you need there to be water. Different seasons mean different amount of flow. If waterfall is almost empty, even long exposure blending won't make it look full, wild and exciting. in the supplied photo you could probably fill a bucket and release it upstream, then take the shot as the water rolls down in front of camera

You're not wrong about time of day, unfortunately I have limited family support out here in oz, so getting to nice locations during the 'golden hour' is quite difficult as I am often required to 'be at home' during those hours. But I take your point, that hdr might not actually be required for certain shots, in fact I may try taking one of my bracketed shots to RAWtherapee and use their tonemapping feature (never used before), see how it compares to the HDR version I have already done.
Polarising filter I do not currently posses, I should change that <jumps on ebay>
I have not heard of ETTR before, am reading a little about it now, interesting, thanks for educating me I have a feeling you are bang on, I should master a solo shot before moving onto blending and also being generally more educated to realise if I'm in a certain scenario and hdr is even necessary or beneficial.

And also fantastic idea for the bucket of water! No really... I have my K-50 arriving after a Aperture Motor Failure today, I may well go back and visit that same spot (this afternoon) with the 21mm attached and see what I can manage with some extra waterflow, I shall post the results here!

On the k5 series, the variable that changes in bracketing mode while in Manual mode is controlled by what the green button is set to do. It's under "E-Dial Programming". Mine is set to "TvShift" and it's the shutter speed that changes during a bracket. The k-1 may behave the similarily?

Spot on! That's exactly what I needed, and indeed your guidance pointed me to that setting. Cheers!

---

Last edited by BruceBanner; 08-28-2017 at 05:31 PM.

[Na Horuk]

being generally more educated to realise if I'm in a certain scenario and hdr is even necessary or beneficial.

This is a big one. I tried HDR many times but it never actually produced things much better than regular raw photo with good PP. Always something was moving in frame between shots, or the final shot looked too flat and grey.
I think you got lots of good tips in this thread. Make a list, test them out, tell us how it goes

[Ian Stuart Forsyth]

Most of the time I don’t use the bracketing feature of the camera, with today’s cameras like the K5 and newer you can get away with the number of bracketed shots needed. What I usually do is decide on what DOF I need for that scene and hold that Fstop for the entire series of shots. I first take a reading of the darkest area found in the scene and find the correct setting for largest exposure that I can capture. I then proceed to take a reading on the brightest area found in the scene and again decide on the largest exposure I can capture for that area, most of the time I find that they differ by around 3-5 stops.

Knowing the DR of the scene and how much it differs (for example 4 stops ) from the darkest are to brightest I can then pick an exposure that falls in the middle as my blending exposure that will be used in the transition for photoshop blending the DR of that scene.

Once I know the above I would go about taking the photographs, with waterfall photographs I usually select a shutter speed of 1/8- 2 seconds long, if you need a longer shutter speed for base iso shooting and you are using a tripod I would go even longer so that you can capture as much light for that image as possible . If you cannot obtain an exposure that will give you the needed 1/8-2 seconds the you might have to add a ND filter to achieve a longer shutter speed.

For a scene that has 4 stops of DR I then would take a second exposure that is 2 stops smaller by adjusting the shutter speed only, this is for the middle blending exposure . Then for the final exposure I would again decrease the size of the exposure for the brighter portions of the scene by another 2 stops. This should give you more than enough data to produce nice scene that contains 4 stops of DR without having to take 5 or more bracketed shots.

As far as how I process the final image I shy away from tonal overlapping in favor of a more natural looking HDR processing and compressing the scenes DR into that of which I am going to display the image.

a good read Demystifying HDR, the zone system, and dynamic range ? Ming Thein | Photographer

[BruceBanner]

Most of the time I don’t use the bracketing feature of the camera, with today’s cameras like the K5 and newer you can get away with the number of bracketed shots needed. What I usually do is decide on what DOF I need for that scene and hold that Fstop for the entire series of shots. I first take a reading of the darkest area found in the scene and find the correct setting for largest exposure that I can capture. I then proceed to take a reading on the brightest area found in the scene and again decide on the largest exposure I can capture for that area, most of the time I find that they differ by around 3-5 stops.

Knowing the DR of the scene and how much it differs (for example 4 stops ) from the darkest are to brightest I can then pick an exposure that falls in the middle as my blending exposure that will be used in the transition for photoshop blending the DR of that scene.

Once I know the above I would go about taking the photographs, with waterfall photographs I usually select a shutter speed of 1/8- 2 seconds long, if you need a longer shutter speed for base iso shooting and you are using a tripod I would go even longer so that you can capture as much light for that image as possible . If you cannot obtain an exposure that will give you the needed 1/8-2 seconds the you might have to add a ND filter to achieve a longer shutter speed.

For a scene that has 4 stops of DR I then would take a second exposure that is 2 stops smaller by adjusting the shutter speed only, this is for the middle blending exposure . Then for the final exposure I would again decrease the size of the exposure for the brighter portions of the scene by another 2 stops. This should give you more than enough data to produce nice scene that contains 4 stops of DR without having to take 5 or more bracketed shots.

As far as how I process the final image I shy away from tonal overlapping in favor of a more natural looking HDR processing and compressing the scenes DR into that of which I am going to display the image.

a good read Demystifying HDR, the zone system, and dynamic range ? Ming Thein | Photographer

Thank you Ian for a detailed explanation, and I will pocket that link for bed time reading later.

[BruceBanner]

Ok so I found this interesting read; Exposing to the Right Explained

I'd like to point you all to this section here;

"5) ETTR Method Two

The other method is a bit more complicated, and it requires that you do some testing. First, change your metering mode to spot metering, then find the brightest part of the scene that has to retain detail. If you test your camera beforehand, you will know the amount that you can increase exposure compensation by and still be able to recover information from this area in post-processing. For example, with my Nikon D800E, I can increase exposure at least by +2.3 EV above spot meter’s recommendation for the brightest part of the image.

If you use this method, you don’t need to rely on the less-than-accurate histogram in your camera, although it puts more weight on your personal ability to judge the brightest part of a scene.

The first step is to find how much brighter you can expose your image compared to the spot meter’s recommendation. Set the camera to manual mode and spot metering. Point the metering point on the brightest part of the scene, and record the exposure that the camera tells you to set. Then, take several photos, ranging from +1/3 EV to +4 EV. Open the images in your image editor, then darken them all to match the spot-metered exposure. Check the exposure compensation of the brightest photo that still retains highlight detail — with my D800E, it was +3 exposure compensation."

I was following this advice when I realised that when you're in manual mode, the +/- exposure dial on the K-1 'doesn't do anything' because... well... everything's manual. I wanted to increase at the recommended increments but if I simply adjusted one of the three (aperture, iso or shutter speed) it may have went above the step or lower, I really wanted to use the exposure +/- dial to keep me right.
So i kept the metering to spot and shifted to TAv mode, kept the camera steady on the same scene, P lined (green button) the lightest part (darkest exposure), and then increased the exposure as recommended with the +/- exposure dial which shifted the ISO value only (and not in leaps of 100 that i was restricted to in Manual mode). This is acceptable no? I have to say I rarely use the +/- exposure dial buttons on my K-1, preferring to simply adjust one of the 3 main depending on the mode I'm in.

Bruce

[NS_Sailor]

I've been experimenting with HDR and moving water/waterfalls with and without a ND filter for a while and I've found this works the best.

1) it is best not to try and shoot Hand Held it is best to use a tripod or set camera on a hard surface,
2) us a cable/wireless shutter release or set the shutter release timer with a 2 second delay
3) set the camera to bracket shoot 3 shots which should be plenty or just take a single shot. I've tried 5 bracketed shots but other than having the raw images take up added storage space on the SD Card did not improve the final outcome
4) set the camera to Aperture Priority or with Hyper-Program Mode set the F-Stop on the lens to it's highest setting F-22 or Higher. If using a variable 10 ND filter set the lens F-Stop to the best optical setting for the lens and the filter between 5 & 8
5) set the ISO to 100 manually
6) set the camera to save the image/images as RAW files (This will be handy in post processing)

These settings will depending on the available light give you shutter speed between 2 & 5 seconds which is enough to give a softening effect on the water without under exposing the surrounding foreground or background

When it comes to Post Processing I use either the Photomatix Essentials Stand alone Application or the Photomatix Essentials Photoshop Plugin. Photomatix will also allow you to apply HDR Post processing techniques on a single RAW or 24 bit TIFF file which is a handy option

Here is a sample of a bracketed Image with fine lighting adjustments with Photomatix shot with a K500




A single Image PP to HDR with Photomatix

[BruceBanner]

I've been experimenting with HDR and moving water/waterfalls with and without a ND filter for a while and I've found this works the best.

1) it is best not to try and shoot Hand Held it is best to use a tripod or set camera on a hard surface,
2) us a cable/wireless shutter release or set the shutter release timer with a 2 second delay
3) set the camera to bracket shoot 3 shots which should be plenty or just take a single shot. I've tried 5 bracketed shots but other than having the raw images take up added storage space on the SD Card did not improve the final outcome
4) set the camera to Aperture Priority or with Hyper-Program Mode set the F-Stop on the lens to it's highest setting F-22 or Higher. If using a variable 10 ND filter set the lens F-Stop to the best optical setting for the lens and the filter between 5 & 8
5) set the ISO to 100 manually
6) set the camera to save the image/images as RAW files (This will be handy in post processing)

These settings will depending on the available light give you shutter speed between 2 & 5 seconds which is enough to give a softening effect on the water without under exposing the surrounding foreground or background

When it comes to Post Processing I use either the Photomatix Essentials Stand alone Application or the Photomatix Essentials Photoshop Plugin. Photomatix will also allow you to apply HDR Post processing techniques on a single RAW or 24 bit TIFF file which is a handy option

Here is a sample of a bracketed Image with fine lighting adjustments with Photomatix shot with a K500




A single Image PP to HDR with Photomatix

Points 1) I do
Point 2) I use a remote or 2 sec delay but have been guitly of longer exposures, which is fine if like your picture above the only subject is a stationary rock, not so cool if doing 5-10 sec exposures with moving trees.
Point 3) I have also tried 3 and 5 bracketed and agree that 3 is probably enough, anymore and it becomes 'too' dynamic.
Point 4) is where I was going wrong, using Manual mode and the bracketed images changing via Aperture, which can bump the focus off a tad, so once again thanks for highlighting this part.
Point 5) I do
Point 6 I do

I used to use Photomatix but have shifted over to HDR Efex Pro 2 which I find a tad better (and free).

Nice image by the way.

The initial point of the thread was to discuss how to approach the process if the shot is involving a lot of trees and foliage and perhaps there is some wind and movement of the trees that day shooting.

Even 3 bracketed 2 second shots might show some tree movement (6 seconds to finish the set), do we then also take 3 quick shutter release bracketed shots (of the same exposure)? We then blend the 3x2second shots with photomatix or Efex (recalling the blend method), this time focusing our attention more to the water areas, and then save, and then import the 3xfast shutter shots and blend similarly, this time obviously focusing on the trees, and then take both final HDR images and Stack in photoshop and then using Mask erase the still water and replace with the smooth water (or vice versa)? To my mind this is really the only way to do it properly (if using HDR for long exposure is necessary, ie ETTR still isn't a solution).

[NS_Sailor]

Points 1) I do
Point 2) I use a remote or 2 sec delay but have been guitly of longer exposures, which is fine if like your picture above the only subject is a stationary rock, not so cool if doing 5-10 sec exposures with moving trees.
Point 3) I have also tried 3 and 5 bracketed and agree that 3 is probably enough, anymore and it becomes 'too' dynamic.
Point 4) is where I was going wrong, using Manual mode and the bracketed images changing via Aperture, which can bump the focus off a tad, so once again thanks for highlighting this part.
Point 5) I do
Point 6 I do

I used to use Photomatix but have shifted over to HDR Efex Pro 2 which I find a tad better (and free).

Nice image by the way.

The initial point of the thread was to discuss how to approach the process if the shot is involving a lot of trees and foliage and perhaps there is some wind and movement of the trees that day shooting.

Even 3 bracketed 2 second shots might show some tree movement (6 seconds to finish the set), do we then also take 3 quick shutter release bracketed shots (of the same exposure)? We then blend the 3x2second shots with photomatix or Efex (recalling the blend method), this time focusing our attention more to the water areas, and then save, and then import the 3xfast shutter shots and blend similarly, this time obviously focusing on the trees, and then take both final HDR images and Stack in photoshop and then using Mask erase the still water and replace with the smooth water (or vice versa)? To my mind this is really the only way to do it properly (if using HDR for long exposure is necessary, ie ETTR still isn't a solution).

What version of Photomatix did you use? The most recent 64 bit Version (4.0.2) has the added option of being able to adjust the level of de-ghosting that can almost eliminate ghosting between bracketed frames in the background such as wind blown trees. The way I understand it, it automates the process you describe doing with photoshop by taking one of the bracketed images as the baseline then automates the masking process at the pixel level to the other two images hiding anything in the other two bracketed images that doesn't match or align exactly with the base image. I've used it with macro level shots with a 18-200mm lens at maximum zoom, the software was able eliminate any evidence of movement in the macro image from wind or any kind of exaggerated movement synonymous with using a long zoom.

[BruceBanner]

What version of Photomatix did you use? The most recent 64 bit Version (4.0.2) has the added option of being able to adjust the level of de-ghosting that can almost eliminate ghosting between bracketed frames in the background such as wind blown trees. The way I understand it, it automates the process you describe doing with photoshop by taking one of the bracketed images as the baseline then automates the masking process at the pixel level to the other two images hiding anything in the other two bracketed images that doesn't match or align exactly with the base image. I've used it with macro level shots with a 18-200mm lens at maximum zoom, the software was able eliminate any evidence of movement in the macro image from wind or any kind of exaggerated movement synonymous with using a long zoom.

Oh it's been awhile since I used Photomatix, at least 1-2yrs, good to know tho. It's quite possible I'm not utilising either Efex to it's maximum capability either.