Family headed out on a daytrip through the Gold Coast hinterland today. Then on down past a favourite haunt (the Spinx Rock cafe), out through Kyogle, and back to Brissy.
My DSLR doesn't get much exercise during daylight hours, but I've been meaning to try longish exposure waterfall shots for ages. Got my chance today - was just as hard as I thought it would be, but my usual technique of trying every setting under the sun and just keep shooting produced a few keepers. Will have to read up on HDR I s'pose
Rob! What a SPECTACULAR place! You MUST go back there and shoot it in low light! Try ISO100 on F/11 to F/16. Shoot in AV (Aperture Priority) and let the camera work out the exposure. WOW!
Thanks for the kind words everyone. It really is a rather special place I hope you get to check out some time if on the Coast.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bloodhound31
Rob! What a SPECTACULAR place! You MUST go back there and shoot it in low light! Try ISO100 on F/11 to F/16. Shoot in AV (Aperture Priority) and let the camera work out the exposure. WOW!
I want to go there...
Baz.
Thanks Barry - it was actually a pretty dim cloudy day - we were lucky not to get rained on really. I started with my nifty 50, but soon tweaked that wasn't going to work with high F stops and low ISOs. The 18-55mm kit lens took most of these, and pleased how it worked. Unfortunately my cheap tripod has pretty well died now, so most of my pics were multi-shot efforts with the hope some would be steady enough - not good for over 1/4 sec exposures. I was a bit surprised that in AV mode the camera kept overexposing the white water even with a single central sensor operating, so I ended up aiming for a bit of underexposure and bracketing best I could.
Quote:
Originally Posted by iceman
Beautiful place, I'd love to go there too!
I would've expected more water after the rain you guys had!
Nice shots.
Cheers Mike - the main waterfall comes down through a hole/cave into the big cave underneath to make the "bridge". It was louder than I've ever experienced, so plenty of water. Not a flood though fortunately. Definitely more water about than I'd ever experienced before - that was the plan too of course visiting during wet weather.
Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan
Hi Rob,
Stunningly beautiful place and yep i'd like to go there as well.
Duncan
Hi Duncan - quite a popular tourist spot - always plenty of accents on offer from the various visitors. They always seem happy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liz
All great shots, but love the 3rd - colour of the water in the pool is supherb, and the water flows look bful.
Thanks Liz - the water was very bright and easy to overexpose, while the rest of the cave was so dark (and noisey and misty!). I'm sure the experts would use multiple exposure settings, etc in this situation.
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Originally Posted by lacad01
Looks like a magic spot Rob, thanks for sharing those images
Thanks Adam - glad you enjoyed
Quote:
Originally Posted by StephenM
Love the 3rd shot Rob! Did you see the glow worms?
Cheers,
Stephen
Hi Stephen. I didn't check them out this time, but have seen them before. This time around I was too busy madly shooting and trying settings before the kids and wife wanted to go. Fortunately the 2 and 4 year old discovered the puddles on the floor made wonderful muddy splashes, later followed by excitement at the bats on the roof. Now they want to know if the local fruitbats that go over every evening live in a cave
That looks like an awesome place. Will have to check it out some day and get some images.
As to the metering issue you had -- if the camera was set to full evaluative metering (which it typically is by default) then it really doesn't matter if you point the central AF point to where you want to expose. The scene is divided in to 35 zones which the camera meters individually and then averages out for the scene.
To get a proper exposure for a particular point, you need to switch to either centre-weighted metering or spot metering. I can't remember the spot size on the crop sensor Canon's, but, on my 5D Mark II the spot covers 3% of the viewfinder's centre (from memory). It was either 3% of 6%. This makes an enormous difference when it comes to exposing correctly.
Most of the time, however, evaluative metering with bracketing, and blending in post will get you there. The way I do it is to typically take one "properly" exposed image and then use that rather than work with separate images as sometimes you end with slight shifts in composition between exposures -- especially on a windy day. I also turn auto focus off once I've composed my scene and make the appropriate adjustments manually (hyperfocal distance focusing, typically).
Thanks for the detailed help Humayun. I perhaps naively thought limiting to the central sensor would allow me to pick what I want to meter on more precisely, but I suspect the Canon's evaluative routines will be smarter than me, so I better turn them back on for next time. Couple of queries if you chance back this way:
1. Do you use auto bracketing, or chose the variation settings yourself.
2. Umm - what's hyperfocal distance focusing (I better head off to Google....)
Regards,
R
Quote:
Originally Posted by Octane
Rob,
That looks like an awesome place. Will have to check it out some day and get some images.
As to the metering issue you had -- if the camera was set to full evaluative metering (which it typically is by default) then it really doesn't matter if you point the central AF point to where you want to expose. The scene is divided in to 35 zones which the camera meters individually and then averages out for the scene.
To get a proper exposure for a particular point, you need to switch to either centre-weighted metering or spot metering. I can't remember the spot size on the crop sensor Canon's, but, on my 5D Mark II the spot covers 3% of the viewfinder's centre (from memory). It was either 3% of 6%. This makes an enormous difference when it comes to exposing correctly.
Most of the time, however, evaluative metering with bracketing, and blending in post will get you there. The way I do it is to typically take one "properly" exposed image and then use that rather than work with separate images as sometimes you end with slight shifts in composition between exposures -- especially on a windy day. I also turn auto focus off once I've composed my scene and make the appropriate adjustments manually (hyperfocal distance focusing, typically).
Aha - just had a read and start to understand now. Very valuable info, and I can see especially important for your landscape work.
Also helps me understand better the value in high quality lenses with proper markings. I better stop reading any more - I can feel my wallet vibrating....
Wonderful shots, Rob. Must be fantastic up there with all the water around at the moment. Very different from when I was there last.
Thanks Troy. I thought it risky and feared a grilling from the wife if we hit rain on the way down. Plenty of cloud hanging around the mountains, but nice not to get rained on.
)
