Beginner’s Guide to Waterfall Photography

A Post By: Anne McKinnell

There are few things more majestic than a flowing waterfall, whether it’s on the Niagara river or the little stream behind your house. There are many ways to photograph these natural wonders, and I’ve compiled a few tips, tricks, and techniques to help you get waterfall images that do justice to their elegant beauty.

Equipment Choices

The equipment you need will depend on what type of photo you want to make. But you probably won’t make that decision until you are on location, so here is what I usually keep in my camera bag if I’m planning on shooting a waterfall.

• Tripod – As with most forms of landscape photography, a tripod is your best friend. It will allow you to compose your scene very precisely and give you the flexibility you need if you decide to shoot long exposures.
• Circular polarizing filter – This is an essential piece of equipment when photographing water to allow you to remove reflections and glare from the water’s surface. You might not need this if the frame is filled with the waterfall, but you will want it handy if you decide to include a pool of water in the foreground. It will remove the reflection and allow you to see through the water to any interesting rocks underneath.
• Neutral density (ND) filter – If you decide to shoot a long exposure and it happens to be the middle of the day when there is a lot of light, you will need this gray-tinted piece of glass placed in front of your lens. It blocks some of the light from hitting your sensor, allowing you to use a slower shutter speed. These are sold in varying strengths, and can be stacked for different levels of light absorption.
• Lens cloth – Useful for cleaning water spray off of your lens or filter. I like to use little pieces of ShamWow for absorbing water drops. They are helpful for cleaning water off the rest of your camera too, and even your tripod legs when you are done.

Camera Settings

The camera settings you use will depend on what kind of photo you’re after:

Silky waterfalls

To create that silky smooth blur popular with waterfall photography, you’ll want to use a slow shutter speed for a long exposure. With your camera mounted firmly on a tripod, set it to shutter priority mode (usually “S” or “Tv” on your camera’s mode dial) and set your ISO as low as it will go (usually 100). Then, select a shutter speed between one half second to four seconds to achieve a nice amount of blur.

Experiment with different shutter speeds to get the amount of blur you want. The best shutter speed will depend on how fast the water is moving, so getting the shutter speed just right takes a bit of experimentation. If you cannot get a slow enough shutter speed for the effect you want, use a smaller aperture so that less light enters the camera. That will allow you to select a longer shutter speed. If you still need a slower shutter speed, that’s when you can use a neutral density filter to block some of the light.

Keep in mind that when using a long shutter speed, if there are any plants or trees in your frame they may have an opportunity to move if there is any wind, and then everything in the image will be blurry. For this type of a scene, it is usually better to photograph earlier in the day when there is little wind.

Freezing the motion

Especially interesting when photographing violent falls, this requires just the opposite technique – you want a fast shutter speed to capture a brief moment and suspend the water’s movement in the air. Use shutter priority mode and select a faster speed such as 1/500th of a second or faster.

For this technique you wont need a neutral density filter and you might even be able to get away without using a tripod. If you are in a low light situation, to get a fast shutter speed you may need to use a larger aperture such as f/5.6 to let more light in, and you can increase the ISO to 200, 400 or as high as you need to go to allow a fast shutter speed.

Detail shots

Instead of getting a broad landscape style shot, you might want to close in on an interesting rock, plant, or other detail of your scene. For this, compose your shot (use a tripod if possible) and turn your camera to aperture priority mode – “A” or “Av” on your mode dial. This will allow you to have control over the depth of field, or how much of the picture is in focus from front to back.

The aperture value is shown as an f-stop. F-stop numbers are a little confusing because the smaller numbers represent a larger opening and vice versa. I find it helpful to think of it as a fraction. F/8 is smaller than f/4 because 1/8 is smaller than 1/4.

Small apertures let less light in, but they increase the sharpness in the foreground and background. Large (or “wide”) apertures, on the other hand, mean that only part of the picture is in focus, while the rest becomes soft and out of focus.

Look at your scene and decide what you want in focus and what should be blurry. If you want to isolate your main subject, choose a large aperture (small f/number) such as f/4 or f/2.8 to make the background out of focus. If the background is important to the picture, choose a small aperture (large f/number) like f/16 or f/22 to make the entire scene sharp and clear.

Composition

There are many compositional techniques to employ when creating waterfall images. First and foremost, remember the rule of thirds and how your eye is drawn through the image. Use the leading lines inherent in flowing water to create visual pathways for the viewer to follow, remembering that corners are very strong entry and exit points in the frame. Pay attention to both the foreground and background, and don’t forget to pay attention to what’s around the water, as well as the falls themselves.

Field techniques and summary

• When you arrive at any scene, the first thing to ask yourself is, “What makes this place unique?”. Pay special attention to that quality.
• Bracket your shots to make sure you get the best possible exposure – this means taking several pictures using different apertures and shutter speeds, and also making several different images using the camera’s exposure compensation (+/-) to brighten or darken each shot to a different degree. See your camera’s manual for specific instructions on how to use these features.
• Shoot in the uncompressed RAW format to allow for more flexible fine tuning in post processing. RAW images must be processed with a compatible photo editing program, or software that was included with your camera.
• Experiment – most of all, don’t get stuck making the same type of photograph all the time. Try to make a long exposure, a fast exposure, some detail shots, and try different perspectives so you come home with a variety of images from your photo shoot.

Gear mentioned in this article

• tripods – link to some of the best, and most popular brands
• neutral density filters – make sure to get the right filter size for your lens, or biggest one and a step down ring to your smaller ones
• lens cleaning cloth