Photographing a Waterfall {How-To}

I can still remember seeing my first slow motion waterfall picture and thinking “Wow, how do you do that???” Of course, I figured it out and now love taking pictures of waterfalls. There’s something about the silky flow of water over a beautiful rock that’s really quite enchanting. So how do you photograph a waterfall?

Well, first of all you have to decide how you want the final image to look. Do you want to simply freeze the action with the cascading water appearing as it naturally does? Or, do you want to make a more artistic shot with a “bridal veil” flow, simple and elegant? See the 2 examples below of Shannon Falls in Squamish, BC, photographed on separate occasions. The first one displays the slow motion effect that we will explore further in a moment. The second image is a more natural look where the turbulent water really captures the feeling of raw power and energy.

So let’s have a look at just how you can capture the slow motion effect of a waterfall…

Shutter Speed

If you want to freeze the action in your photograph, like the second example above, you must use a faster shutter speed. However, if you are going for the slow motion effect you must use a much slower shutter speed. By using the slower speed you are in effect creating motion blur for the water and this creates that silky look that we all love. For the best results you should probably use a shutter speed of around 1-5 seconds. Of course, every cascade is different. Volume of water and rate of flow can cause each waterfall picture to come out differently than the last one. You will more than likely need to experiment with shutter speed until you achieve the desired result.

Tripod

The key and secret to this whole effect is the use of a tripod. There is no humanly possible way you can shoot a slow motion waterfall by hand holding your camera. Sure, the water will still come out blurry but so will everything else in the frame, the rocks, trees and plants etc. The goal of this effect is to blur only the water but keep everything else in sharp focus.

You should also make use of a remote shutter release. This will add further stability to the capture as you will not be moving the camera at all when pressing the shutter button.

Filters

One of the biggest problems you will come across when slowing down the shutter speed is overexposure. Slowing the shutter speed of course causes the shutter to remain open for longer, thus letting in more light. Thankfully, there are ways to combat this issue through the use of filters. Polarizing and neutral density filters work very well. I would try the polarizing filter first. The filters will reduce the amount of light entering the lens and cut down greatly on any exposure issues. Cheaper filters tend to be constructed from thicker glass and will probably do a better job in this case than a higher end, more professional filter.

Of course, the other alternative is to take your photograph later in the evening or early in the morning when the natural light is much less extreme. Your photo won’t look dark, it will still appear as if it were taken during the middle of the day because the longer shutter speed is letting in a lot of light. An overcast day will help also.

The effect also works well on fast flowing rivers too. The  images below were captured on rivers with lots of turbulent water. In the first image, the shutter speed was used to slow the water down by just a small amount. In the other two images the water is slowed down much more giving the effect of a cloud flowing downstream…