Waterfall Photography 101 - The Basics

Mill Creek Falls, York County Pennsylvania

Bald River Falls in Tennessee at 1/250 sec

With a decent camera (a point and shoot or even, dare I say it, a cell phone,) you can walk up to a waterfall, take a single photo, and walk away.  From such an effort you will likely have a nice picture of the falls.  But if you want those dreamy, ethereal looking images, it’s going to take a little more than that. 

A DSLR is the best way to get the results you are looking for.  I do  On some trips I also bring along my 500mm zoom in case I see any wildlife, but is big and heavy.  Wildlife is often fleeting and by the time you change lenses it can be gone.  I have found it is usually not worth the effort.

It only took 1/2 second to achieve this result.

most of my shooting with an 18-55mm lens, but also carry a 55-200mm for those long shots and close-ups.

The key is using long exposures.  That however, comes with certain technical difficulties that can be overcome with the right equipment, proper technique, and good planning and timing.

A shutter speed of 1/10 second will give a nice little blur under the right conditions, but that’s usually not slow enough.  I have regularly used exposures as long as 20 seconds.  I’ll be explaining why that has been my limit in just a bit, and how I’ll be overcoming it.  But I digress.  “Under the right conditions” takes in two factors:  The speed of the moving water, and your effective distance (the combination of focal length and the actual distance from the subject.)  The closer your image appears in the camera, the less time it will take to create a blur.  Inversely, the farther away your subject appears, the longer it will take to achieve the desired blur. 

(Below Bald River Falls) Fast moving water close up blurs at 1/100 second

(Below Bald River Falls) At just 1/2 second, it becomes a misty dream.

Expect to take a fair amount of time when shooting waterfalls.  Experiment with exposure times, and watch for "hot spots."  It's easy to spend an hour or more at any given waterfall and the surrounding river.

(Swatara Falls Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania)  Farther away it takes 8 seconds to get even a moderate blur, especially at a time of lower water flow.

Above: 1/10 second gives a nice little blur.  Below: a full 10 second exposure.

First and foremost, you need a tripod; a good one.  You don’t have to break the bank, especially if you are willing to by used equipment, but you can easily pay $100 or more.  Just so happens I paid $15 for a used Slik Universal U212 many years ago.  It even came with a carrying bag with a shoulder strap.  A quick release isn’t mandatory, but is a huge time (and aggravation) saver.

I can’t recommend the shoulder bag enough.  You may be happy to photograph waterfalls from your car.  Ansel Adams never ventured far from his vehicle.  But likely as not, you will find that many waterfalls require at least a little bit of a hike.  The first time you walk more than a couple hundred yards with your gear, you’ll appreciate the bag.  The bag also provides a clean, dry surface, on which you can lay lenses, filters, etc that you may continuously use on and off as you shoot. 

The goal is to have an exposure time of several seconds.  With long exposures such as these, simply touching the shutter button can introduce vibration and ruin your images.  To combat this, use a remote trigger, or the self timer.  By default, the self timer is set to 10 seconds so you have time to run around in front of the camera.  Check your settings and shorten the time.  10 seconds is a painfully long time to wait to start making the exposure.  

River below Mill Creek Falls, York County, Pennsylvania 1/40 second exposure

River below Mill Creek Falls, York County, Pennsylvania  1/8 second exposure

River below Mill Creek Falls, York County, Pennsylvania  2 second exposure

To get that long exposure, set your ISO to the lowest number and the aperture to the largest number (smallest opening,) By the way, you can use Automatic Exposure in Aperture Priority mode.  Or you can use your light meter and go full manual.  You might ask, if I want long exposures, why not use Shutter Priority mode?  By using Aperture mode, you are guaranteed to have the longest shutter speed possible.  For metering, I use the center weighted averaging mode.  But if you have “hot spots” in the image, try using the exposure compensation and underexpose by 1 or 2 stops.

At this point, I should mention that RAW is the best format to use.  Some will argue the point, but it gives one the most latitude in post processing which is a must in waterfall photography.

A waterfall photographer’s best friend is an overcast day when the sunlight is at its dimmest.  On such a day, you can achieve shutter speeds as long as a second or two.  That IS adequate to get a nice blur.  But longer is better.  You can artificially add to that overcast by using one or more neutral density filters.  I have Cokin 1-stop and 2-stop filters that I stack.  I also sometimes add a polarizing filter to further dim the light and selectively dim any glare.  Before my next waterfall trip I plan on buying a 4 stop filter.

Bring an extra battery.  Long exposures can eat up battery life.  Extra memory cards are a good idea as well.

A hat is very handy to have in any kind of landscape photography, especially when shooting with a tripod.  We can’t always plan to have the sun in the “optimal position.”  A hat can be used to shade the end of the lens.  Like the tripod bag, it can also offer a clean, dry place to set things like filters.

A rocky river in North Carolina.

Of course you will want to focus on the waterfall itself, but don’t forget the rocky rapids of the river, stream, or creek that supplies the falls, as well as any mini-falls, swirls and eddies.

You may also want to take photos along the trail.  If you have that perfect cloudy day that allows long exposures, you will likely have to raise your ISO at certain points.  Don’t forget to set it back to its slowest when you return to shooting moving water.

At some point, even if you aren’t hiking to more remote locations, you will likely have to scramble up and down (of down and up) some kind of embankment.  Always make sure you never drop down farther than you can get back up.  It’s handy to have a friend in such situations.  Not only is it more fun with a friend, they can hold your gear and pass it down (or up) so you don’t have to manage it while you are scrambling.

That’s it for this lesson, but I will soon be working on Waterfall Photography 201 that will include tips for those willing to hike to more remote waterfall locations.  But suffice it to say (as a disclaimer) at this point that one should NOT venture into the woods if not properly prepared and equipped. 

From my film days.  One of my first waterfall shots from Yellowstone National Park

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