Goin' with the Flow!

[Ed Vatza]

Image made on today's lunchtime photo walk. There I was in dress slacks, shirt, tie... and old kneepads. I was kneeling on a large rock about two feet or so out into the creek with camera and lens on tripod. I had to be quite a sight!

Canon 30D; 24-70mm f/2.8L lens; Singh-Ray Vari-ND; tripod-mounted

10.0 sec @ f/22; ISO 100; 0 EV; FL 70mm

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Ed,
Don't you just love the Vari ND! I do wonder how many people thought you did go off the deep end (sorry just had to) dressed like that?!
I like the way you composed this with the rocks dispersed throughout the frame. You have to be very careful with the Vari ND as in the pool areas of the flow....it gets too hot sometimes especially on a 10 second exposure. See if you can tone down the rock and leaves in the left ROT position as they are drawing the eye. As the flow is more toward the top of frame it almost splits the image in 2 so I wonder if concetrating more on the upper flow area was the way to go. I see you were at 70mm already.....so may not have been possible or introduced other unwanted elements.

In these type of images the flow pattern and their form become strong compositional elements. The more you play around with the Vari ND the more you will start to see the patterns in the water and try to incorporate other objects into the image with pleasing results.....very different thinking than the normal landscape image as you don't really see the effects of the Vari ND....until you take a test shot or have used it enough to know what it will do to the scene just by looking at it. The more you use the filter the more the above explanation will become apparent to you! Hope I didn't confuse too much!

[Dave Mills]

Hi Ed, Very good advice given by Roman on the vari ND. Takes a bit of practice knowing where and in what conditions it works the best. Sometimes with water flow it pays just to use the polarizer since that will also slow your shutter speed considerably...

[Dennis "Curly" Buchner]

Like the comp. but rock and leaves are a little too bright

[Grady Weed]

Roman hit it on the nail head and Curly summed it up for me on the bright spots. Good effort given however.

[Ed Vatza]

Thanks guys. I appreciate the feedback. I may have introduced the hot spots in processing. Anyway, I went back and redid the post-processing with a slightly gentler touch. Any better?

[Ed Cordes]

Hi Ed, I like the re post a lot more. However my eye is still drawn to the bright area of leaf in the LFC. Can you paint a bit of color into the white highlights?

[Roman Kurywczak]

Definitely better!....also agree with Ed on the leaves.