A couple of new photos

[kurtteej]

Not from the Dax, just the Catskills. Kaaterskill Falls and a shot of the creek heading down from the falls.

First the falls (well, the lower one anyway)


now the creek:

[Judgeh]

very nice...I feel a hike coming on

[Wildernessphoto]

Very nice Kurt!
Looks like film to me.
-Gary-

[Kevin]

That's a really nice pic of the lower falls. You have any of the upper falls too?

I've been there twice and look forward to #3 and #20 to come. It's an awesome destination for novice hikers at only .75 miles, and well worth the walk if it were 10 miles.

[Emily T]

Beautiful! You can almost smell the moisture in the air...looks like a great destination. Love the blurring of the water...as Gary said, is it film? I have not been able to do that effect with my digital camera....

[Dick]

Novice question here: when we shoot moving water with digital, the water almost always comes with that impressionistic blurry look, out similar to Kurt's shot, without particularly trying. It's a nice effect, but is there a way to get it to look sharp? I know I've seen very sharp pictures of moving water before. Or is this where digital leaves off and film takes over?

Dick

[fvrwld]

I think Peanutbuter has some very sharp digital pics of Raquette Falls. To increase the sharpness you have to decrease the exposure time. It has to be a very bright and sunny day.

[Wildernessphoto]

I think Peanutbuter has some very sharp digital pics of Raquette Falls. To increase the sharpness you have to decrease the exposure time. It has to be a very bright and sunny day.

Well Said Val!
you can achieve that different ways depending on your camera. If you have ISO settings, turn them up to 400 or more, and your shutter will trip faster, sometimes you will need to adjust your white balance. if you have shutter speeds you can freeze movement by going to the upper settings, something over 250. 500 or 1000 would be better...

[kurtteej]

Very nice Kurt!
Looks like film to me.
-Gary-

actually, no -- these were taken with a Digital Rebel. I used a 0.9 neutral density filter to really darken it up and played around with the White Balance setting, I think that I had it set for a cloudy day on these 2. There was NO photoshop editing at all on these pics other than resizing. The print came out REALLY good [in my humble opinion].

The problem that I had was getting the upper section of the falls -- the sky completely dropped out because digital just doesn't have the range that film does. I'm not good with film at all.

KT

[Wildernessphoto]

actually, no -- these were taken with a Digital Rebel. I used a 0.9 neutral density filter to really darken it up and played around with the White Balance setting, I think that I had it set for a cloudy day on these 2. There was NO photoshop editing at all on these pics other than resizing. The print came out REALLY good [in my humble opinion].

The problem that I had was getting the upper section of the falls -- the sky completely dropped out because digital just doesn't have the range that film does. I'm not good with film at all.

KT

Totally fooled me Kurt...
Excellent job! I've yet to get in there to photograph those falls, I saw Kev's photo's last year and was totally impressed with there size!

[kurtteej]

Novice question here: when we shoot moving water with digital, the water almost always comes with that impressionistic blurry look, out similar to Kurt's shot, without particularly trying. It's a nice effect, but is there a way to get it to look sharp? I know I've seen very sharp pictures of moving water before. Or is this where digital leaves off and film takes over?

Dick

Well, actually these are digital shots. I used a filter to darken things overall, so that I could make the water turn white. To get rid of this, you should -- increase the ISO to around 400, this will speed up the shutter time and freeze the water.

I have a little more on this on one of my pages -- http://www.outdoorphotoguide.com/gad...pwaterfall.asp

Digital is 'almost' as good as film in many cases.

[kurtteej]

Totally fooled me Kurt...
Excellent job! I've yet to get in there to photograph those falls, I saw Kev's photo's last year and was totally impressed with there size!

Well honestly, I think that you thinking that I took this with film is a HUGE complement, which I greatly appreciate.

[kurtteej]

That's a really nice pic of the lower falls. You have any of the upper falls too?

Here's one of the full falls, but I didn't originally post it because the sky is completely gone (this is the big problem with digital -- the range is 1/2 of what film is).

[Kevin]

I can usually compensate by lowering the exposure settings .7 or 1.3

This shouldn't impact the water effect, as I believe the change in exposure is in the fstop and not the shutter speed. You will lose some detail in darker areas, but the overall gain and addition of sky is a welcome trade off IMO.

[Hakuna Matada]

Kurtjeet,
The pictures are great and thanks for the Outdoor photo guide. Maybe I can learn something so I can get great photos of all the places I go instead of so..so pictures of great places.