Home Forums Gear Photography Grand Falls on the Little Colorado

Journeyed this late afternoon to Grand Falls on the Little Colorado River northeast of Flagstaff. Played a little with a new ND4 filter to give slower shutter speeds to soften the water. The filter definitely imparted a color shift. I arrived a little late as the shadows were already at the base of the falls. The next trip in the near future will provide more time in the afternoon to try different ND and CP filter combinations and shutter speeds.







Doug~RR

Here are untouched jpegs of the same view to illustrate the color cast caused by the ND filter. Both were taken with a CP in place, hence the vignetting with both filters on the lens.

Taken without ND filter


Taken with ND filter


Doug~RR

Been awhile since I have journeyed out that way. Thanks...

Very nice photos! I love doing that "angel hair" stuff with the ND filter. Very fun.

M

This Sunday morning, Rica and I took a short hike down Pumphouse Wash south of Kachina Village to find some small waterfalls that I was told about almost fiteen years ago.



This little drop was just above the waterfalls. (I am still having difficulty with the color balance due to the neutral density filter. Any thoughts on prevention/correction?)


The waterfalls had a nice pool beneath, which might be nice during the warmer summer months.


Doug~RR

I compared the new ND4 filter to an older ND4 from the film days. There is a definite blue tint to the new one seen when looked through that the older filter does not give. So much for "neutral", and will try another brand.

I really like this stuff!! Especially the panoramics. Would like to see the falls in panoramic.

Don,
I have never stitched photos together to make a pano, but will give it a whirl after I get back out there to retake some pics before the flow drops.

Doug

There are a couple of things--I don't have my info handy but as I recall you can get what are called "warming" ND or polarizing filters to counteract the blue, and you can try setting your white balance to open shade or cloudy to warm it up. This sometimes helps balance out the colour cast on snow which is where I use it the most.

Nice pics by the way.

LawMan.

LawMan is right, but the issue is actually the length of the exposure. Try backing off the exposure length just enough to get the soft water and before the color starts to migrate. An assortment of filters in a common carrier gives a lot of flex.

Warming with any number of photo programs will get it back where you want, especially if you have normal exposures for comparison.

Try them in B&W or Sepia tone if you want the easy way out...

Neat looking scenary!
art

What a difference 30 minutes makes, at least according to the exif info. The first one shot at f/11 is really good. I was surprised by the f/25 setting on some of the later images. Was that a setting you chose to use, or a result of lighting?

I've played with the small aperture settings before, and they do work.

Brian,
I chose the f/25 to give a slower shutter speed, although I knew I would probably lose some image quality due to diffraction.
In pics #2,4 & 5, the sun had gone behind a cloud to the west. I did not have on the ND filter with pic #1 and chose f/11 to get max sharpness.

Pic 3 is a crop and hasty adjustments of this image taken when the sun was out.

Went back out to Grand Falls this afternoon to retake some photos with a new ND8 filter. The wind gusts of 63 mph on Sunday were gone, so didn't have to worry about the camera and tripod being lifted over the edge today.

Took a series of 8 vertical photos and used PSE7 to blend them into a panorama. Individual photos were done on manual: F/22, 1/20sec, f=18mm, ISO 200.

Way cool pics guys thanks for sharing

Very nice photos Love how the water looks! Thanks for sharing!