This is a roughly 5 foot drop on Emigrant Creek in Montana. It’s part of a long, steep cascade. In this case, I wanted a shutter speed that would smooth the water while still showing some of its shape. (That’s typically in the 1/2 to 1/10 s, depending on how fast the flow is.) I felt that the smoothing to mostly white would contrast well with the colors in the surrounding rocks.
Feedback Requests
This version was taken as a cloud blocked the sun. That reduced the contrast and lets me show more of the details.
Pertinent Technical Details
R5, 24-105 @ 32, 1/5 s, f/22, iso 100, tripod and polarizer. The iso, polarizer and f-stop were chosen to get the shutter speed wanted.
Hi Mark,
This turned out quite nice . I particularly like the way you framed this with the viewer having a look at six different chutes of water flowing down the creek. The placement of the fallen tree; looks like it has been there for awhile; also works well in this scene as it takes the viewer from the LLC and directs them upward towards all that lovely water action. Your patience of waiting for the sun to go behind the clouds has evened out the lighting and creating all these wonderful details for the eye to enjoy. Beautifully done.
I love just about everything in this image. Actually, I should say, there’s nothing that I don’t love!
Love the flow - and great job with the SS and texture of the water. Love the colors; the clean whites of the cascade set within all those beautiful earth tones. I also love the weathered log central to the composition.
No nits or suggestions. All I can think of is that one could have spent half a day just playing around this location - not to mention the cooling off effect I get from this!
Mark, this is very nice and looks to be a challenging scene to work with overall. Speed of water and shutter-speeds are always subjective and hard to predict the best looks in the end. This image works extremely well as presented here and I can’t say I have any ideas for any possible improvement whatsoever…
Mark: I especially like the saturation on the rocks and stream bed that you brought out with the polarizer. A lot of reflections would have detracted IMO. I also like all the various entry points of the water and how you have them arranged in the frame. Superbly crafted image. >=))>
