Ithaca Falls
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (1/50, 1/13 & 1/3s bracket), 24mm, f/18, ISO 100
Ithaca Falls
Tag Archives: landscape
Gorge-ous Reflection
Gorge-ous Reflection
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1.3s, 17mm, f/16, ISO 100
Taughannock Falls
On Saturday I wandered off on another early morning adventure. I made my way to Taughannock Falls State Park on the lower west side of Cayuga Lake. This park has been on my list of must see state parks and I was happy to finally make my way there. I parked the car at the lake end of the park which nestled between route 96 and Cayuga lake along the Taughannock Creek. The 3/4 mile gorge trail takes you right to the signature waterfall. It was a happy coincidence that I didn’t make it to this park until autumn. The colors in the gorge are incredible and only enhanced my images.
The Lower Falls are visible from route 89 along the lake and were a great way to start my exploration. There were numerous locations for different views of the small cascade and true to my water fascination I used them all. There was a way to get down onto the creek bed but I wasn’t positive how frowned upon that would be so I stayed on the path.
The Lower Falls
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/8s, 22mm, f/16, ISO 100
Crisscross Cascade
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1s, 35mm, f/22, ISO 100
Many Falls
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1s, 62mm, f/22, ISO 100
The end of the gorge trail did not disappoint. The 215′ Taughannock Falls was impressive, especially since you can get so close to it. The difficulty in capturing this waterfall, at least in the early morning, was the angle of the sunlight and the amount of shadows. I ended up using a two exposure blend to balance the light.
Taughannock Falls
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (1 & 1/4s blend), 21mm, f/18, ISO 100
Not to distract from the beauty of the waterfalls but I truly enjoyed to creek which created the gorge. It took me about 1.5 hours to walk the 3/4 mile trail because there were so many opportunities for me to capture my beloved water images. I’ll have more on those later…
Adirondack Color
The fog was very persistent and I was running out of ways to extend my stay. This is the last image I captured in Old Forge before heading home Friday. This was around 10:30am. I am most certain that by the time I made it back home it was a beautiful day up north, I know it was great at my house… 🙂
Adirondack Color
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 1/200s, 70mm, f/16, ISO 100
Morning Glow
The colors of the sunrise were too good to pass up, so another image from my early morning at Hinkley Reservoir makes it into my stream. This is a 3 exposure bracket HDR image. It was the best way to capture the most light. The sunrise wouldn’t be as interesting if the rocks in the foreground were silhouetted.
Morning Glow
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, {1/4, 1, 4s bracket), 17mm, f/16, ISO 100
Reservoir Sunrise
I finally make it to the weekend and the forecast is for rain. I’m sure I’ll still enjoy the time off from work but I was looking forward to a few events this weekend. The Trenton Falls trails are open again this weekend (as well as next) and there is the Trenton Falls Art Festival. Hopefully Sunday will not be a total washout and I can get some exploring in along the trail and at the art festival.
When I awoke the moon was still shining brightly through the windows so I knew the clouds would have to be rolling in if we are going to get the rain predicted. I packed up the camera and headed to Hinkley Reservoir to capture the sunrise. It was a good plan. The clouds hadn’t completely obscured the sky and the pre-dawn light was incredible.
Pointing the camera into the morning light was going to cause the foreground to almost completely black out. This was the perfect scene for some bracketed images. I properly exposed for the sky and water and tried a few images to ensure I was balancing the histogram. Switched the camera into exposure bracketing, selected +/-2 and let the camera do its thing. This gave me three images, one underexposed by 2 stops, one exposed for the sky and one overexposed by 2 stops. This would give me enough detail in both the highlights and shadows to work with.
I used the ‘Merge to 32-bit HDR’ option in the Photomatix plugin for Lightroom to blend all three exposures together, producing an image with a wider dynamic range. A few adjustments to brighten up the shadows and lighten the highlights produced the image below. The clouds were moving fairly quickly but I let the merge process use all the information which smeared the clouds slightly but I like the results.
Although I am only 20 minutes away from the reservoir this was my first trip up and after the beautiful morning I will be making a more trips in the future. There is quite a few locations along the shore to explore…
Reservoir Sunrise
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, (0.5, 2, 8s bracket), 17mm, f/16, ISO 100
Classic View
Rainbow Falls – Classic View
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 6s, 28mm, f/18, ISO 100
Rainbow Falls
There is training for work I will be attending in Buffalo, NY on Monday and Tuesday this week so I took the opportunity to visit my parents. It also allowed me to stop at Watkins Glen State Park for a little exploring. I have seen images from this park and knew it was going to be a good time. I was not disappointed.
The gorge trail along Glen Creek is absolutely amazing. As I am sure readers of this blog are aware I love to photograph water. I definitely have a thing for it. It took me a little over three hours to walk the 1.5 mile trail through the gorge. I know I would have stayed longer but as I was returning from the west end of the trail the park was starting to get crowded. The trail is not very wide in a lot of places and setting up a tripod when it is busy just didn’t seem right. I didn’t want to hold people up or be in the way.
This is the view from the stone bridge at Rainbow Falls. I have the more classic view also but I really liked the detail in the gorge walls in this view.
Rainbow Falls From Above
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 8s, 17mm, f/16, ISO 100
MLCreations Photography 