How to Photograph Waterfalls

Camera & Equipment selection

You can easily take a picture of a waterfall with almost any type of camera by pointing & clicking, results may vary. To create a photograph of a waterfall and achieve your intended results you should learn to control whatever camera you have.

Cameras

While a camera that allows manual control of shutter speed and/or aperture is best, rudimentary control can be set through a camera that operates in and automatic mode that allows you to “shift” the shutter speed & aperture settings in unison.  Almost any 35mm SLR film camera will allow you to select from up to 3 program modes.  An error light/sound will normally indicate settings that the camera guesses will not be a successful exposure. Many cameras will not take a photograph until this indicator is remedied by changing aperture, shutter speed or film speed (ISO/ASA).

Some professionals may cringe that I almost always shoot in one of these program modes.

Shutter Priority Mode - You select the shutter speed and camera will attempt to select suitable aperture for *“correct” exposure.

Aperture Priority Mode - You select the aperture and camera will attempt to select suitable shutter speed for *“correct” exposure.

Program Mode (Automatic Mode) - Camera will attempt to select both aperture and shutter speed for *“correct” exposure.

Some cameras have various flavours of each of these 3 modes like “program landscape mode” & “program night mode”.  Camera makers seem to have forgotten “program waterfall mode”.

Why do I normally work in a program mode?  Well I prefer to work in shutter priority mode to give me full control over the critical shutter speed.  The camera tries to set the aperture for the *correct exposure.  I alter the final exposure value by using “exposure bias” available on most digital cameras, you can also “bias” the exposure by fibbing to the camera about your film speed (ISO/ASA).  Entering a plus or minus “exposure bias” will adjust your finished images if you wish for a brightness level different than the “correct” exposure.

* “correct” exposure is not an exact science and includes your desire to interpret the scene.  Most cameras set to any “Automatic” or “:Program” mode will attempt to capture the scene as if it was a neutrally light vs dark image which is normally set to 18% grey. In manual modes they will normally recommend exposure values to achieve this same 18% grey.  If your scene is not an “average” scene then your preferred exposure could be as much as 2 exposure stops brighter or darker than what the camera’s best guess is.

Lenses

Which lens is the elusive “perfect waterfall lens”? 

Every lens in your bag!

Possibly not a good answer but basically correct.  You can really use any lens quality or focal length providing that the waterfall or composition you wish to create fits in your frame, from a safe access point. Zoom lenses allow more choices while carrying less equipment, often zoom lenses are claimed to be not as crisp as a “prime” or fixed length lens.

Zoom lenses are integral to our style of work as I often will “scan” a waterfall or other subject searching for compositions while often changing focal length to suit each potential image.

Wide angle lenses (15-30mm) allow you to show a lot of a subject that is close to you.  On the downside they can also make objects in your image appear to be tiny and many are bad for collecting unwanted reflections/refractions and degrading your image.

Medium lenses (35-70mm) are the most versatile for shooting waterfalls and in fact most subject sin general.  A 35mm camera’s original lens was often a fixed 50mm lens, being roughly equivalent to perspective of human vision.

Medium Telephoto lenses (70-210mm)

Telephoto Lenses (200+mm)

Digital Multiplication Factor

Most Digital SLR’s (D-SLR) use a chip (CCD or other) that is smaller than the old standard frame size of 35mm film. This results in a “Digital Multiplication Factor” of roughly 1.5X or 1.6X depending on your camera model. If you are using a 50mm lens with a D-SLR your image will appear similar to if you had used a 75-80mm lens on a 35mm camera.

Lens Filters

Polarizing Filter

Neutral Density Filter

81A Warming Filter

UV Filter

Tripods

The ultimate tripod does not exist.  Select a tripod based on tradeoffs, primarily a triangle of weight vs stability vs cost.

Consider tripods in 3 size ranges:

Hiking

Portable

Luggable / Draggable

You can aid your tripod in several ways:

Look for natural pockets for each tripod leg where possible, put legs where they will stay instead of slide around.

Rocks stacked against tripod legs, especially the “upwind” leg in high winds.

If your center post has a hook on bottom end hanging a small amount of weight there is a great idea especially if that weight also touches the ground to prevent it from swinging.

If shooting over a fence use tiny bungy cords to thread through fence and support the 2 closest legs against the fence.  Make the third/back leg a little longer and make sure it’s got some (camera) weight on it.

Carry a small bag to hang items in or just hang your camera backpack.  We carry a super light bag designed to carry water for camping that cost about $3. Some sand, rocks or even water makes the bag a great aid to camera steadiness with little carrying weight or size.  Serves as an emergency rain hood too.

Other stability enhancing methods:

Handheld Bracing – lean against a tree, rock, fence railing or even a partner to brace yourself.

Monopod - Tripod reduced to only one leg.  Not great for long exposures but a monopod will improve most of your images.  We add a small ball & socket head and carry this almost everywhere.

Beanbag - Simply a bag full of beans.  That doesn’t mean they are lying to you but they are great for steadying your camera with minimal weight & hassle.  You can buy a “professional” beanbag often with ¼ inch threaded camera mount.  Better still take or make a small bag and fill it about 2/3 full of beans.  That’s it!

Clamp - Clamps like Manfrotto “C” clamp are perfect for clamping onto a metal fence post or top rail.  Clamps will mark wood so please don’t clamp onto a wooden railing for example.  When using a clamp keep your neck strap on, or carefully attach your neck strap to a fixed object for safety.

Tripod Heads

Pan Tilt Swivel Heads

Geared Heads

Ball Heads

Panorama Heads

Levels

Handheld Levels

Tripod Levels

Camera Levels

Camera Batteries

Camera Manufacturer Battery Packs

NiMH Rechargeable Batteries

NiCad Rechargeable Batteries

Alkaline Rechargeable Batteries

Lithium Batteries (non-rechargeable)

High Energy Alkaline

Camera Bags, Backpacks & Belts
Shutter Release Methods

Hold your breath

Self Timer

Shutter Release Cable

Air Shutter Release Cable

Wired Remote

Wireless Remote

Pocket Wizard (and similar's)

Laptop Tethered

Shutter Speed

Cameras that allow manual control of shutter speed & aperture will allow the most control of your photographs and almost all also allow automatic or program modes.  A common range of speeds is between 15 seconds and 1/500 of a second.

Water droplets are easily captured crisply at 1/250 or 1/500 so faster shutter speeds make little difference to the water motion itself, though may be useful to capture your images on a bright day without “burning out” the reflections on the water.

At the other extreme 15 seconds is a very long exposure even for a waterfall.  While the sun hits the falls you will be hard pressed to achieve even as slow as 1/20 of a second without polarizing filter or neutral density filters.  At around 1/20 of a second and slower is where you can begin to create surreal images referred to as Cotton Candy, Angel Hair etc.

At 1/20 of a second and slower you are entering an exciting realm of surreal possibilities.  Water averages out to smooth flows of white and fluctuating water may not visible for entire exposure often creating water “ghosts” over the background.

Waterfall “Work”flow

While I hate to call it “work” anything here’s our approach to photographing a newly discovered waterfall.

When we arrive at a waterfall if the lighting is good I will normally shoot some handheld images with a 35-70mm zoom even before I setup a tripod or mounting device.  If you have limited time at a waterfall and all the good light was used up while you assembled your tripod & gear you will be very glad to have captured those initial handheld images.

Our Fuji S2 Digital SLR (D-SLR) has a buffer of seven images which can be shot in a burst then requires about 2 minutes to completely empty image memory buffer.  While the buffer writes to the Compact Flash card I am busy setting up either a tripod or camera mounting clamp, or occasionally just a monopod for brightly lit falls or when we are in a hurry to get to yet another falls.

If your tripod has a bubble level or other level indicator take the time to use it whenever possible.  Sure you can adjust the camera straight using the tripod head but if you can level the tripod accurately first, your camera adjustments will be much simpler and your images may be straighter.

Waterfall photographs can be difficult to get “level” or more accurately angled to your preference.  Use a bubble level (spirit level) that mounts in your flash hot shoe adapter.

What’s “level” for a waterfall?  If you are shooting from squarely “in front” of the falls, the level attached to your camera should indicate the correct position for “level”.  If you are off to the left or right of waterfall center you may wish to make a correction once you have used the bubble level.  Centering the bubble level may make the water appear to fall crooked due to your viewing angle of the falls.

If your camera has grid lines in the viewfinder turn them on if necessary.  Often these lines indicate cropping or usually the “rule of thirds”.  Use these grid lines to align with a piece of the falls that is surely falling straight down.  Often a long trickle that falls cleanly without touching the rocks is the perfect alignment tool. 

Once your shot is composed you can move the tripod head slightly to align one of the marks to the vertical portion of falls.  Check the angle, adjust if necessary then carefully move your tripod head back to your desired composition.  Using a pan/tilt “video” type tripod head makes this very easy.

Your first tripod setup is now ready for tweaking then exposure (s).  Film camera users should look critically through your viewfinder to check your composition.  Is it straight?  Got the content you wished to include?  Are there distractions in the image, can you eliminate them?  If in doubt leave it out!

*Digital* Shoot your first test image on automatic mode at the slowest film speed (ISO/ASA) possible, we start at 100 ASA.  While this will provide you with a useable snapshot more importantly you can quickly see your composition.  Also you can get an indicator of how much light you have by the automatic settings selected by your camera for this test exposure.

If your camera can display a “Histogram” use this to check the levels captured by your camera.

Marker Frames

I'm working out a system to use in future of "wasting" frames by photographing hand signals to mark what I was doing. Likely you will only be interested in using these signals if you shoot a large number of image frames like I do. My first 1-5 images from a tripod setup will likely be slightly different as I compose image and test/modify my baseline exposure. Once I am ready to begin bracketing, I reach in front of camera and photograph my fingers, indicating what type of images I am attempting to capture.
Fast - 1 finger left hand
Medium - 2 fingers left hand
Slow - 3 fingers left hand
Pano - 4 fingers right hand
Finished Set - 1 finger pointing down
Error - Closed fist

Water Motion

Water generally moves at a speed of 2-6 feet per second.  The shutter speed you prefer for any given falls or image should be selected considering water flow and your desired result.

Waterfalls in high flow often seem to flow steadily while smaller falls or falls with low flow often have fluctuating portions of water.

Fog or mist can often be created by waterfalls.  While sometimes this makes it difficult more often this is a blessing.  Use this fog or mist to your advantage.

Exposure

Histograms

Program Shift

Shutter Priority Mode

Aperture Priority Mode

Guerrilla Bracketing