Ragged Falls

[Andrew McLachlan]

I have not been out and about too much lately for any fresh landscape imagery but did make a recent trip to Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park. On my way home I made a stop at Ragged Falls Provincial Park, which is a small park that offers stunning views of Ragged Falls on the Oxtongue River. I made the short hike in, which was easy due to the little snow we have received this winter for this scene downstream from the falls.

Nikon D800
Nikon 18-35mm lens @ 27mm
ISO 50
f16 @ 0.5 sec
Nikon Polarizing Filter

Look forward to comments and suggestions.

[Diane Miller]

Nicely composed with good detail in darks and lights. There is an area near the top center that looks a little hazy -- some mist? It might be worth a look to do a softly masked curves there and tweak a bit more contrast.

Looks like you were pushing the limits to get a slow shutter speed. Have you tried the trick of shooting several (on a tripod) and stacking them at declining opacities to get a blend that simulates a longer shutter? (Each layer's opacity is the inverse of it's layer number. Layer 2 is 50%, layer 3 is 33%, layer 4 is 25%, etc.) It might not work well here, though, as too much blur in the water would leave it looking like the snow.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks Diane, much appreciated. I have never tried the trick you mention, but I have tried something similar by using the Multiple Exposure feature however, this technique only works well if there is no wind or elements such as rocks that cannot get blown around by the wind :)

[Diane Miller]

Good point about wind. But if you do it in PS with several exposures you can mask the effect to just the water, or whatever element you want to blur, and use the trees from the base exposure. Put all the other frames in a folder and you can do one mask for the whole folder.

[Don Railton]

Very Nice Composition Andrew & lots of detail.. I see Dianes reference to the mist. No suggestions...

DON

[Don Lacy]

Frigid scene Andrew man do I miss living in the cold Wonderful flow to this image leading the viewers eye through the frame.

[David Cowling]

A fine image illustrating the look of winter in your region, I can feel the cold coming through! Lots of detail in the water and snow.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks so much for the comments folks, much appreciated!

[Grady Weed]

This says "cold, frigid, icy to the bones, wet, burr"! I like POV and the direct head on feel. Almost a don't fall in to it. TFS.