Catching mistbows at Great Falls on the Potomac is a favorite activity. Success depends on the time of day, day of the year, and amount of water. I really like the mix of violent water crashing along with the subtle coloring that the mistbows create.
Specific Feedback Requested
I’m pleased with the result, especially catching some splashing action.
Technical Details
I wanted moderate blurring in the water along with structural details. This means a shutter speed in the 0.1 to 0.5 s. Since a strong misbow requires bright sun, I added a 4 stop neutral density filter, a polarizer (2 stops) and dialed the iso down to 100. For shutter speeds in this range camera movement from a hard press of the shutter can be a problem so I used a cable release. (7D2, 100-400 @ 400, tripod and cable release)
Yes Indeed, Mark…wonderful image !!
Mark, this is a beautiful and refreshing image! I love the light and airy feel. It also does a good job of conveying the power of these falls.
I have a few thoughts here: one is that the two “humps” of water in the upper-center that seem to dominate the image are a bit off-center to the left, and the lighter falls spilling in from the upper left and right corners also seem to frame those humps and the darker falls along the top edge. So the scene is presenting some natural symmetry, but the framing feels a little off, because it’s close to centered but not far enough off to feel intentional. (I recognize this is tough to predict with water exposures!) With that in mind, a crop off the right could be helpful, bringing the ratio down to a 4:3 starting from the left edge.
Secondly, in the spirit of preserving the airy/misty/clean feel, I would dodge up some of the darkest areas, as they’re not evenly distributed throughout the image enough to avoid becoming distractions. I tried this in PS by painting white in the offending spots on a soft light layer through a Darks 2 mask, and it seemed to work well. I did twice the adjustment (by duplicating the layer) on the top two dark areas than I did on the bottom waves. Then the image looked a little washed out, so I moved the black point over about 15 points on a Levels layer to bring a bit of contrast back into the image as a whole.
That dodging actually somewhat fixed the symmetry issue I initially saw, as the off-centered-ness of the upper dark sections became much less noticeable. In turn, the crop was less necessary, especially if you prefer the native 3:2 ratio. But without it, I would consider smoothing out the somewhat harsh transition from the violet to the plain white/gray water on the right edge of the frame (I sampled some violet color and painted it on a blank Color blend mode layer in that area to do so).
One final thing is the stripe of bright white water in the upper-left, I would darken that a bit.
I hope this helps!
Mark,
Wonderful portrait of the Potomac! The texture of the lower part of image is excellent and of course you’ve captured the colors in the misty rainbow beautifully.
Alex’s edits are icing on the cake - making the image about the best it can be.
Lon
Thanks, Alex. I had dodged that area along the top using a D2 layer, but didn’t push it as far as you did. Your extra dodging makes a big difference in the overall mistiness.
