Waterfall on the McCloud River

[BobH]

Another question about "what is real?"

The water in those shots has the silky smooth look of a long exposure. It doesn't look like that in person. But it also doesn't look like what you get when you shoot at 1/100th of a second and freeze drops of water in mid-air. So, what is an accurate depiction of moving water?

That's another artistic judgement call you, your camera gear and the existing light conditions make. Obviously the final choice is made by the photographer, but your gear and the light place limits on your options. Shooting with a 5.6 lens in the woods at dusk? Then a shutter speed of 1/500th probably won't get much of a photo... As an example, by the time I shot this falls, there was no avoiding the blur due to low light.

 

[Russ Jump]

I like all three photos the HDR and or processing can make the photo more marketable that is how I see it and yes i'm new to this

 

[squirl033]

i like the comps on all three, but the HDR on the first two is just way overdone for my taste... they look like backdrops from a computer game or something. the last one is nice, better colors, but still looks a wee bit "overcooked" for my taste...

 

[squirl033]

i think it would be a fun challenge, to shoot an HDR waterfall without any blown highlights - and impossible to tell that it's HDR.

it certainly can be done, though it does take some careful work to get an exposure that doesn't blow the highlights... the HDR processing will then just brighten the shadows, and if done carefully, you can bring out the details without overdoing it and adding too much noise.

 

[BrianH]

it certainly can be done, though it does take some careful work to get an exposure that doesn't blow the highlights... the HDR processing will then just brighten the shadows, and if done carefully, you can bring out the details without overdoing it and adding too much noise.

Im sure it can be done but I have never seen one that did not look plastic to me.

 

[BrianH]

i like the comps on all three, but the HDR on the first two is just way overdone for my taste... they look like backdrops from a computer game or something. the last one is nice, better colors, but still looks a wee bit "overcooked" for my taste...

I guess you said it better than I

 

[ddietiker]

i think it would be a fun challenge, to shoot an HDR waterfall without any blown highlights - and impossible to tell that it's HDR.

Or you can shoot it in a single shot. No need for HDR. Remember, water is not grey, some areas should be and need to be white.

 

[BrianH]

Nice shot Douglas..........Where on the Elwa did you shoot that?

 

[ddietiker]

Nice shot Douglas..........Where on the Elwa did you shoot that?

Thanks I appreciate it, it is the Columbia Gorge on the Oregon side. Though I posted this to show you dont have to do HDR to get water right and also to show that white (or blown) areas are not always bad. But you need to make sure they appear properly. For landscape photography, light is everything.

 

[Russ Jump]

Shot 1 is from my canon XSI. 2 is ran Through Photoshop Elements 7. 3 a single Raw tonemapped Through Photomatix HDR and photoshop

 

[Brianjbean]

I've wondered about HDR myself because it can become a crutch when used too often. But I think we are also debating different styles within photography. The cartoonish look of some HDR isn't necessarily a bad thing. You just need to take it for what it is and kinda accept it as a style that you may or may not like because even the overdone HDR look is art, even if it's not entirely accurate or photojournalistic. It's just an interpretation.

To me, the point of landscape or nature photography is to capture the feeling of a scene, or what it felt like to be there at that moment, which can be impossible to do in some light and without manipulating the image. As Bob mentioned earlier, blurring the water is image manipulation to convey the feeling of water in motion. How is that any different than using HDR to convey the feeling of a scene? We use HDR to record the dynamic range for the same reason that we use shutter speed to capture motion. It's just so bloody easy to do now that I think a lot of purists reject it because difficult shots used to weed out the bad photographers. now anybody can pull of difficult shots if they have photomatix.

Reality is what you see, not necessarily what your camera sees. In the below image, I could not capture the feeling this scene gave me because i was in a thick rainforest, late on an overcast winter day. The greens were dull and dreary on the camera, not vibrant the way they appeared to me. I don't think HDR makes this scene any less genuine. How you reflect reality depends entirely upon your interpretation of it, because don't we all experience these things differently and have different emotional responses to what we see? How could one person's approach ever be wrong then? Isn't that why we all keep shooting the same cliche'd blurred waterfall shots over and over again. It's not like it's never been done before

 

[BobH]

Reality is what you see, not necessarily what your camera sees. In the below image, I could not capture the feeling this scene gave me because i was in a thick rainforest, late on an overcast winter day. The greens were dull and dreary on the camera, not vibrant the way they appeared to me. I don't think HDR makes this scene any less genuine. How you reflect reality depends entirely upon your interpretation of it, because don't we all experience these things differently and have different emotional responses to what we see? How could one person's approach ever be wrong then? Isn't that why we all keep shooting the same cliche'd blurred waterfall shots over and over again. It's not like it's never been done before

Very well said... I totally agree.