A planned visit to Donegal included a visit to the stunning Stranorlar waterfalls. Generally I use a number of filters to smooth out the water but give the terrible weather that has afflicted Ireland even at the height of morning the light was exceptionally low.
I was out with the Fujfilm X-Pro1 & Fujinon 14mm lens. Shooting at f/22 I was able to smooth the water with a two second exposure. To be honest there wasn’t an awful lot of water flowing so increasing the exposure time resulted in what water there was became almost invisible.
You can see just how fine the water flow was from the images below. The top header image is a little more cropped than I would have liked but the full size version is available on 500px and flickr.
I should also give a big credit to my new Billingham photo bag. Juggling tripods, cameras and filters isn’t easy especially in dirty, wet conditions. My Billingham F-Stop F1.4 strapped around me offered direct access to lens cleaning cloths, ND filters and spare batteries, I love this bag.
This was just one example when a longer exposure isn’t necessarily the best way to capture a scene. All the images of the waterfall were 1.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds in duration.
If you are interested in the technique of long exposure photography then check out the long exposure ebook.
Related Ebooks
The Long Exposure (PDF eBook)
The eBook covers everything from the equipment you will need right through to post-production processing in Adobe’s brilliant Lightroom. This guide has been written with the beginner to the long exposure process in mind; however, the enthusiast and professional alike may find something of relevance also. The Long Exposure Ebook
