Waterfall Exposure

I would appreciate some help with photographing waterfalls.

I seem to remember John Shaw recommending metering the waterfall itself and then opening up 2 stops to lighten the water but not wash it out. Has anybody any experience with this method?

You ask a question that doesn't have any real answer. Do you want to stop motion, blur the water or what? What lighting will you be shooting in? What film & how is its color rendition? What is the final result to be-prints, slides or magazine use? All these are important to getting the result you want. As to metering & open 2 stops, do you have a good spot meter or can you get close enough to meter the water? You might try using the old tried & true 'sunny 16' rule, with its variations for shade, etc. Then be sure to have a tripod to hold the camera for the blurred water. Try Velvia for good color saturation and sharpness too, it is pretty good. One thing I find very useful is a Minolta incident light meter in addition to the spot meter. The incident meter, when used properly, gives good exposures-especially when tempered with experience. Good luck.

I remember Bob Hitchman wrote an article on exactly this subject

in <a href="http://www.apogeephoto.com">Apogee Photo</a>.

Check the archives.

(The article is basically taken from one of his own newsletters.)

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It's just like photographing snow. So the technique

you mentioned will work.

If one spot meters the (white) waterfall, the meter will make that

medium grey, so opening up by 2 stops will turn the waterfall back

to white and everything else should fall in place. At least this

gives you a starting point. In most cases, I would probably open up

by 1.5 stops instead to avoid burning out the waterall.

 

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A related issue is shutter sheed. If one wants the blury "smooth"

effect on the waterfall, usually, a shutter speed of 1/4 sec or

slower will do.

 

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Again, everybody's preference may be different. The above numbers

are just starting points. One should experiment around to find

his/her own preferred exposure.

I meter on the <em>highlights</em> in the water and put them 1.5 to 2 stops

above the meter reading (mid-tone). You can see an example on my

web pages of a <a href="http://bobatkins.photo.net/gallery/img0006.htm">

North Cascades</a> waterfall. I don't remember the exposure, but

I'd guess aound 1/2 second or so.

I wouldn't presume to argue with John Shaw (!) but I think that opening up two stops may be a bit much. If you're metering purely the white froth, it's on the hairy edge of the upper limit of the film. If there are some darker spots influencing the exposure, a plus two from there would burn out the highlight details. You might consider metering from a neutral toned area in the same general light as the water, then recomposing. Even this may place the white areas too high in tone, so it might call for stopping down a fractional stop from a middle toned reading. Bracket if uncertain...you'll probably want to bracket shutter speeds too. Spot metering can allow you to check the tonal range to make sure you're not near +2.5 on the bright spots.