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Welcome to the forums, Liz!
Those are some nice falls! You did alot better at your first silky water attempt than I did on mine! It looks like it wouldn’t have hurt to have a slightly slower shutter speed – the falls look somewhat silky smooth, but I think there’s still a bit too much texture in them. I also do notice some blown out highlights above the falls, and that’s something to try to avoid. What are the specs for the image?
The orchid is quite lovely; the photo seems underexposed, so you could probably bring up the brightness.
Did you edit either photo at all?
Wow, you really captured the “spectacularity” of that falls, @izzyb! Great first attempt at silky water. Like @bennett-family said, sometimes a slower shutter speed will make the silky water effect look more intentional. I do like being able to see the texture in this falls, especially the texture at the bottom, and you don’t want it to look like a blank white sheet (which it might look like with a super long shutter speed with all that water).
For me, I keep 1/10th in the back of my head as a fastest possible starting point and that usually gets the water looking silky at close range. When the water is farther away, longer shutter speeds are necessary to get the same effect. Just try different speeds until you come up with the one that looks best! For this one I probably would go with something longer.
The orchid is so pretty. Sharp, colorful, great background blur. I probably would have tried removing that other pedal that is in focus in the bottom left corner. The color scheme is great, though I may have warmed it up just a hair.
I’m glad I finally got around to submitting some photos. I don’t think any programs I have give me the specs of the photos I submitted. After downloading them, I formatted my card. The editing programs I use is the standard on my iPad and whatever Amazon Prime offers. At this time, I can’t justify paying for Photoshop and Lightroom. I did set the camera to 1/10th but forgot to check the white balance. My husband guesses that we were 1/8 of a mile from the falls. We were at the upper overlook, shooting down on the falls. I’ll go back and try again. I did edit this picture. The sky had some light, but it was mostly a washed out grey.
The orchid was part of Longwood’s Orchid Extravaganza, so I had no ability to move the flowers around. Eventually I’ll learn how to edit the less desirables out. I shot this with my macro lens. It’s been a struggle to get good pictures without a tripod. Longwood requires a permit for a tripod and I was to lazy to get one. I don’t believe I edited this one. I’ll try “warming” it up a bit.
Thanks for the encouragement.I get how the orchid needs some help. This is my stab at brightening and warming the flower.
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@izzyb, I can’t say definitively, but in my experience on both phone and computer, if you right-click (or the equivalent of that on a touch-screen) on a photo, one of the things that comes up as options is “details” or “properties” and that should have the specs listed in it. I don’t have Apple products so I’m not sure if that’s the case on your iPad or not.
One helpful tip I learned on getting tack sharp pictures without a tripod is not to have a shutter speed number lower than your focal length. Also, when the shutter speed is on the slower side (I ballpark it around 1/100th or less), to make sure you have a firm stance, camera held firmly up to your eye, and press the shutter release gently.
Personally, I think the photo of the falls could use a little more saturation. I might crop off the top of the photo more as well; I think that may give more vertical balance rather than having lots of space above the falls, and very little below.
Your newly edited orchid is looking great!
Lydia,
I appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge and suggestions. Per your suggestion, I cropped the falls and increased the saturation.Attachments:
My pleasure!
To me, the way it’s edited now looks like there’s a filter of some sort over the photo, which gives a slight hazy effect and almost looks a little bit fake.
I did a super quick edit on your original photo so you can see a little easier what I was originally thinking. 🙂 Here’s what I did (besides cropping out the top and the bright area at the bottom): +brightness, -highlights, +shadows, +vibrance/saturation, +clarity, warmed temperature.
Now, I realize your editing program is different so you may not be able to go into that much detail, but that’s kind of what I was envisioning. The other thing I should add is that this is how I would edit the photo; I tend to like things that are bright and have nice contrast. You might edit it differently, and that’s completely fine, too!
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And you can take a look at how my edit of your falls photo turned out at the end of the webinar last night if you’d like! https://www.lenspiration.com/video/webinar041619/
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