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How To Photograph a Waterfall

Monday, 14th February 2011

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The photo above demonstrates the lovely soft effect of photographing the motion blur of a waterfall. Here’s how you do it.

1. Arrive on location either just before dawn or just after sunset. The lower light level will help compensate the need to use a slower shutter speed in order to capture the motion blur, without over-exposing the photograph too much. You’d be surprised at how very little ambient light you need in order to get a great shot.

2. Set your camera up on on a tripod and use a remote shutter release. Again, this is necessary because of the slower shutter speed you will be using.

3. Use the lowest ISO number that your camera offers – ISO 50 or 100 for most cameras.

4. Use the Shutter Priority mode (“Tv” (which, I just learned, stands for “time value”) or “S” on most camera dials), and start at a shutter speed of one second. The camera will adjust the aperture accordingly. For more motion blur, lower the shutter speed in half-second increments (1.5 seconds, 2 seconds) until you achieve the desired effect. The longer the shutter speed, the higher the aperture number will increase in order to compensate for exposure. Check out this link that I’ve shared in the past for a visual demonstration of this concept.

5. If using the Manual mode (“M” on most camera dials), use a large aperture number to reduce the amount of light exposure to the photograph. Try starting with f/22 and increase or decrease depending on the resulting exposure.

It will probably take a handful of shots before you find the right combination of shutter speed and aperture to successfully photograph the motion blur of a waterfall, but once you dial it in you’ll find that the technique is really quite simple.

The photo used in this article is credited to Brian Richardson on Flickr Creative Commons. Brian achieved this photo using the following settings on his Nikon D40: exposure 1.5 seconds, aperture f/22, focal length 55mm, ISO 200.

Related posts:

  1. How To Photograph Fireworks
  2. Back to Basics: Five Tips to Freeze Action and Motion
  3. Back to Basics: Exposure Explained
  4. Expose for the Sky
  5. Long Exposure – A “Rule of Thumb” Challenge!

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  • Steve Russell

    The beauty of photography is that you can take a photo any way you want to. If you don’t care for the long exposure approach to photographing waterfalls and streams, then you’re welcome to use a higher shutter speed. If you like the softer look, then Tiffany’s article suggests ways to do that. However, one of my measures of good photography is what sells. A few days ago I was at the doctor’s office to get a shot and was thumbing through a recent National Geographic magazine (considered the pinnacle of photography) and there was a shot of a stream where the water was flowing over rocks. I also looked in a recent issue of Outdoor Photographer and there was a picture of Horsetail Falls in Yosemite NP. Both photos used the long exposure method to give the water the soft look. So shoot the way you want because you’re the first person you have to please but if you want to sell your images at some point, you should remember that it’s what the editor’s like that counts.

  • Steve Russell

    The beauty of photography is that you can take a photo any way you want to. If you don’t care for the long exposure approach to photographing waterfalls and streams, then you’re welcome to use a higher shutter speed. If you like the softer look, then Tiffany’s article suggests ways to do that. However, one of my measures of good photography is what sells. A few days ago I was at the doctor’s office to get a shot and was thumbing through a recent National Geographic magazine (considered the pinnacle of photography) and there was a shot of a stream where the water was flowing over rocks. I also looked in a recent issue of Outdoor Photographer and there was a picture of Horsetail Falls in Yosemite NP. Both photos used the long exposure method to give the water the soft look. So shoot the way you want because you’re the first person you have to please but if you want to sell your images at some point, you should remember that it’s what the editor’s like that counts.

  • Steve Russell

    The beauty of photography is that you can take a photo any way you want to. If you don’t care for the long exposure approach to photographing waterfalls and streams, then you’re welcome to use a higher shutter speed. If you like the softer look, then Tiffany’s article suggests ways to do that. However, one of my measures of good photography is what sells. A few days ago I was at the doctor’s office to get a shot and was thumbing through a recent National Geographic magazine (considered the pinnacle of photography) and there was a shot of a stream where the water was flowing over rocks. I also looked in a recent issue of Outdoor Photographer and there was a picture of Horsetail Falls in Yosemite NP. Both photos used the long exposure method to give the water the soft look. So shoot the way you want because you’re the first person you have to please but if you want to sell your images at some point, you should remember that it’s what the editor’s like that counts.

  • Pingback: Consideraciones a tener en cuenta a la hora de fotografiar una cascada

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