| How to photograph waterfalls?
These are the best tips!
Photographing waterfalls is an incredibly rewarding activity that can produce stunning results. There’s something truly special about capturing the graceful movement of cascading water in an image. This type of photography, achieved through the use of long exposure times, offers not only a delightful experience when shooting waterfalls but also when witnessing powerful waves crashing against majestic rocks along the shoreline.
By freezing the motion of water in a photograph, you can create a dreamlike image that is often associated with professional photographers. But here’s a secret: You can achieve this too!
Follow our 7-step guide to master the art of waterfall photography.
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Step 1: Choose a Suitable Location
To capture a waterfall in a dreamy manner, the first thing you need is a suitable location with a suitable waterfall. It may be challenging if you live in the Netherlands (like us), but a road trip to Germany can solve that. Want to know the most beautiful waterfalls we have ever photographed? Read our blog about the Erawan Waterfalls.
If you want to practice the technique we will explain below before you embark on your journey, you can also apply it to a fountain or the breakwaters along the coast. By following the steps outlined below, you can capture truly stunning photos in these settings.
When searching for a suitable location, keep in mind that photographing water in harsh lighting conditions can be challenging. For a more atmospheric photo, try shooting during softer light. This means arriving earlier in the day or staying later, but definitely avoid shooting on a sunny day at noon in an open area.
When capturing the movement of water with a long exposure time, you may notice more whiteness in your image. This is due to the presence of oxygen in the moving water. If a bright light source shines directly on it, this white part of the photo can become excessively bright, detracting from its visual appeal.
Step 2: Determine Your Composition
So, you’re standing in front of that magnificent waterfall. Now what? It’s time to decide on your composition. How do you want your final picture to look? There are countless options.
A few things to consider are whether you want to take the photo in portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) orientation. This partly depends on the height of the waterfall, the distance from which you are shooting, and whether you want to capture some elements of the surroundings as well.
It’s often recommended to photograph waterfalls in portrait mode. This advice makes sense since water cascades downwards in a waterfall, and waterfalls are usually longer in height than in width. It’s certainly not a bad tip. It can result in beautiful shots and is definitely worth trying!
However, if you’re at the right distance from the waterfall or if you happen to have the lens that allows you to shoot in landscape mode, and it’s possible to capture the entire scene, do give it a try as well.
Don’t feel limited by the idea of capturing the entire waterfall in the frame. You can also opt for a close-up or cropped shot. One of our favorite waterfall photos is still an zoomed-in image of a stone at the Triberg Waterfalls.
Step 3: Use a Tripod
You can’t capture a long exposure photo of a waterfall handheld. For this, you really need a tripod. If you don’t have one with you, you’ll need to get creative and stabilize your camera on, for example, a rock. Since this can be challenging, you can also choose to use a bean bag. In both cases, it’s important to disable the image stabilization on your lens, if possible.
Step 4: Make a Test Photo
Once your camera is securely mounted on the tripod, take a test photo in automatic mode to check if you’re satisfied with your chosen composition. If you’re happy with it, switch to manual mode and focus on the specific subject you want to be sharp.
Next, turn off your autofocus. Use the exposure meter to determine if your photo is adequately exposed. Set your ISO to 100 as a starting point and experiment with different shutter speeds and aperture settings to achieve the desired exposure.
Step 5: Use a Neutral Density (ND) Filter
When photographing with long exposure times, using a neutral density (ND) filter is often necessary. If you shoot with a long exposure without a filter, while the lighting conditions are good, too much light will reach your camera sensor, resulting in an overexposed photo.
Neutral density filters come in various strengths. These filters block light. In photography, light is measured in stops. Each stop represents a halving or doubling of the light. A neutral density filter blocks a certain number of stops of light.
For example, there are 3-stop filters, but we personally use a 10-stop filter.
Assuming you’re using a 3-stop filter, after completing step 4, you’ll need to adjust your exposure by 3 stops.
Since the filter blocks light, you, as the photographer, need to compensate by allowing more light to reach your camera sensor. This is done by increasing the shutter speed by 3 stops. This means doubling the exposure time of your photo three times.
If your test photo was taken with a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second, you’ll need to do some calculations. Doubling the shutter speed once gives you 1/30th of a second. Doubling it again gives you 1/15th of a second. Doubling it for the third time gives you 1/8th of a second. This will result in more motion captured in the final image compared to taking a photo without an ND filter using a shorter shutter speed.
Step 6: Use the Camera's Self-Timer
To prevent any movement in the image, it’s crucial to avoid camera shake during the exposure. While using a tripod helps, it’s not sufficient on its own. When you press the shutter button to take a photo, the camera can move slightly, resulting in motion blur in the image.
To avoid this, you can utilize the camera’s self-timer function. If possible, set it to a 10-second delay. To have even more control over the camera without physically touching it, using a remote shutter release can be beneficial. This ensures that you don’t introduce any movement to the camera while capturing the image.
Step 7: Enhance Your Photo in Post-Processing
To add that extra touch to your photos, it’s worth considering making adjustments during post-processing. You can choose to decrease the highlights if there are areas in your image that are overexposed. Playing with contrast is another option, but exercise caution not to overdo it. The same applies to adjusting color saturation. Recommended software for post-processing includes Adobe Lightroom or Snapseed for mobile devices.
Last but not least, whenever possible, always shoot in RAW! This file format contains a wealth of data, which can greatly benefit you during post-processing.
Hi! We are Samira & Maurits, two travel enthusiasts with an enormous passion for photography.
With our free travel guides, we hope to inspire you and help you plan your dream holiday. We also provide important tips and tricks for making new journeys, but also for capturing those precious memories in your own travel photos.
All the photos on this site were taken by us (unless it says otherwise underneath a picture).
Do you want to experience this too? In our blogs we link to relevant pages and our favourite travel services that make this possible. For this we (sometimes) receive a small commission, without it costing you anything extra.
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