Lower Christie Falls - Vancouver Island

[Steve Smith]

153262

Canon 70D, !/5 sec, F5.6, 16mm, ISO 200

A small waterfall on Bush Creek, East side of Vancouver Island, May 12 2014.

[Don Lacy]

Hi Steve, A cool little fall, the image as presented has two areas I feel could be stronger. First the image as presented is a little flat lacking contrast and a little to bright in the whites both easily corrected in post. The second is i find the image off balance do to the composition and the placement of the main part of the fall to the left of the frame. A viewers eye will settle on the brightest part of the frame and since that is the water the whole right side of your image is dead space.

[Steve Smith]

Hi Don,

Your comments are much appreciated. It's flat because it's an HDR. It has bright whites where the water splashes because I added those in post processing. In a different context, I showed this image to a professional landscape artist a couple of weeks ago. She looked at it as if it were a painting and made comments from a different point of view. Myself, I am on the fence about this one. I would not enter this in a competition.

[Diane Miller]

I agree about adding a little more midtone contrast -- often done for an HDR after the main processing. I'd love to see a slightly wider angle on the left but I do like the mini-falls in the right part of the frame.

I'd love to hear what the painter thought about it.

[Don Railton]

Hi Steve.

Basically I agree with Don & Diane, needs contrast and framing. I might have taken a step or two backwards and then panned a little left so the water in the main fall is not heading out the LHS of the image. To look right (for me anyway) it should be hitting the bottom of the frame. I also see what looks like colour noise but maybe its from the HDR processing..? or maybe is just diffraction from the mist...

Don

[Diane Miller]

In a situation where it isn't possible to step back and have a clean view, I will get the best shot I can and then shoot a two-frame pano to get a wider angle. It can be tricky to match the frames, especially with a wide angle, but always worth a try. Doing it with HDR adds another challenge but sometimes it can work well.

[Steve Smith]

Hi Don,

Here is a shot from further back and in a different position to the left. This is a single frame with a shorter exposure time and with the contrast increased for the mid tones and shadows. From this angle it loses the "windows and cobwebs effect" that is characteristic of the first shot that I posted. It's a low light situation inside a 60 year old stand of second growth Douglas Fir. The sun comes over the top of the falls at about 1:00 pm in May, shines into the lens and produces atrocious highlights that ruin any shots, even if one tries using the black card technique. I missed the falls this year but next May I plan to have another try.

Steve

1/25, F8.0, 22 mm, iso 200

153292

[Andrew McLachlan]

Agree with other's comments and suggestions for tweaking...I see some very interesting, intimate views of this falls if you used a longer lens and concentrated on the little cascades along the right side of the frame...any chance you created some from those sections? Looking forward to seeing more.