Category Archives: waterfall

Secondary Falls

Posted by Mike on

I attempted to explore Whetstone Gulf state park just outside of Lowville, NY yesterday but ended up returning after finding out the trails close to the public at 3pm. I had arrived at 4pm in an attempt to get some nice sunset pictures, I guess the next trip will have to be early morning. I didn’t see any signs forbidding hikers on the trails in the early hours.

The day was not a total bust though as I stopped at Pixley Falls state park on my return trip. The ground was not as soft and wet as my previous visit so I was able to do some off-trail exploring. I managed to climb down a slope to get to this secondary falls. It was one I spotted during my last visit but was unable to get into position. Of course, the best view was from two thirds the way down the slope. Luckily there were some tree roots I could use to hold the tripod.

Secondary Falls
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/3s, 38mm, f/8, ISO 100

Image Redo

Posted by Mike on

I read an interesting post today by a fellow blogger from Australia who I follow, Leanne Cole (Leanne Cole’s Photography Field Trips), about reprocessing an old image. I generally do not go back through my pictures, except maybe vacation or Disney, but she wrote about applying new techniques she had learned and seeing the affects her current method might have on an image (Restructure).

Surprisingly for Leanne the changes were more subtle than she anticipated. It was more of a refinement but the results, in my opinion, were better on her second image. There was more detail in the subject and a slight change to tone which I really thought enhanced the image. Seeing the results of her ‘redo’ I decided to give it a try myself.

I wanted to see what I could do with an image from my Disney trip in January. I had been exploring photography for about seven months by the time we made the trip and I was still using my Sony point & shoot camera. I had a blast on that trip! I came away with quite a few images I am really happy with. The particular image I chose was of the reverse waterfall in front of the Imagination Pavilion in Epcot’s Future World. I have always admired pictures of this area for the colors and the ability of the photographs to smooth out the water. I was able to achieve the same effect with my camera, sans tripod, but reviewing the image today I think I pushed the processing just a little too far.

I had just ‘graduated’ from simple Lightroom image processing to utilizing the Topaz Labs filters and I believe I went a little crazy with the Adjust module. I reset the original and set about processing the image with LR4, PS Elements 10 and the Topaz Labs filters. The finer control to the exposure offered by LR4 definitely helped me improve the base image prior to finishing in Elements.

Here is the image straight out of the camera:

Imagination Falls – SOOC
Sony DSC-H20, 1.3s, 6.3mm, f/8, ISO 100

This is my original processing of the image:

Imagination Falls – Original Processing

I obviously lost the great glossy look to the water by over processing. Comparing the two images side by side I also see that I de-saturated the colors a little, which really was part of the appeal of the scene. I over sharpened to the point of inducing a grainy look to the image.

Here is my second attempt:

Imagination Falls – Re-processed

Now I have to stop myself from returning to all my pictures to see what I could do to ‘improve’ them. I can’t dwell on the past images but should continue to move forward. I might sneak in a few now and then, especially if I want to use the image for something else, like that book I keep threatening to make to share with my family.

Thanks to Leanne Cole (Leanne Cole’s Photography Field Trips) for her article earlier today which started me down this road.

Pixley Falls

Posted by Mike on

We attempted to explore Pixley Falls State Park on Saturday but we were unable to beat the rain to the park. My daughter and I drove up hoping the rain would hold off. We entered the park just as the rain began. We waited for about 30 minutes but there didn’t appear to be a break coming, so we drove back home.

Pixley Falls is about 25 minutes from my house up Route 46 between Rome and Boonville, NY. There are numerous trails for exploring and quite a few secondary streams producing plenty of photographic opportunities. Obviously ,the main attraction is the big waterfall.

Pixley Falls Front
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (1/40, 1/10, 1/2.5s bracket), 24mm, f22, ISO 100

Pixley Falls Side
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (1/40, 1/10, 1/2.5s bracket), 17mm, f22, ISO 100

After some exploring we found this small stream which had a lot of potential. If it hadn’t just rained we would have been able to go farther upstream which had even more dramatic areas with small waterfalls. But, the rain had softened the ground and made navigating off-trail a little slippery. That will definitely be for another day.

Pixley Falls Tributary
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (1/8, 1/2, 2s bracket), 24mm, f22, ISO 100

I didn’t have a chance to investigate the area prior to driving up so I guessed at 4pm as the optimal time to photograph the waterfall. I knew from a visit last fall that the waterfall would be deep within the trees and very early or late day sun would be out of the question. As you can see from these pictures, there are quite a lot of shadows from the trees even at 4pm. My next visit this summer will be around 10am to see if I can get the sun lighting the waterfall better.

Chittenango Falls

Posted by Mike on

My daughter spent a few days with her grandma and tonight after work I had to drive to Cortland, NY to pick her up. On the way back I asked if she was in a hurry to get home and luckily she wasn’t. We took a quick detour to Chittenango Falls State Park between Cazenovia and Chittenango on Route 13. As I was driving there the sunset was producing some amazing light, unfortunately, it didn’t hold until we arrived. Still, not too bad of conditions to capture a few pictures before we continued home.

Chittenango Falls
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (1/10, 0.4, 1.6s bracket), 32mm, f22, ISO 200