Practice makes better

Photography is a craft as well as an art. While it's not necessary to be a good craftsman to make artful pictures, it definitely helps. Knowing how to use the common controls on a camera - shutter speed, lens aperture (opening), perspective control - as well as the specific controls for your equipment - enhances your ability to capture the image you intended(1).

Your craftsmanship improves with practice. Regardless of the field, you work better and faster when you don't have to think about the equipment, when the equipment becomes an extension of your mind and body. You think about a note or scale, and your hands and fingers play it. In photography, this means you don't have to go fumbling around in menus or - even worse - dig through the manual to figure out how to change some setting. Your fingers find the button to move the focus point or exposure compensation while you peer through the viewfinder, intent on your image.

Doesn't look anything like Iceland, but it's wet, May 2016

 

So with this in mind, I went out the other day to shoot a waterfall. I expect to see massive waterfalls in Iceland, so this special case of landscape photography is worth practicing. It was raining overnight and still mostly cloudy, so the weather was a warmer approximation of what I expect to experience when we get there. The rain would ensure the puny waterfalls in my area have at least a little water flow. I packed up what I think will be my likely "walk from the car" kit: Olympus camera, three zooms (wide, medium and telephoto), extra battery, filters and tripod.

Easy to carry, May 2016

I've found if I'm walking a modest distance on easy terrain, I often just put the camera on the tripod and carry it that way, rather than strapping it into a backpack or carrying the tripod in its own bag. This leaves two lenses, filters and extra batteries in the small shoulder bag. If the terrain is steep or I need the backpack anyway for other gear - clothing layers, first aid, lunch - then it all goes on or in the backpack and the small bag stays home (or in the car).

The spot I was going to was about 3/4 of a mile from the car, and a 150' climb. I put on my waterproof hiking shoes and set off through the muck.

After 15 minutes I came upon a group of people with a larger group of dogs - maybe 4 people and 10 dogs. My guess? Dog walkers. This park has signs all over telling people to leash their dogs, and all of these dogs were on leashes. All of which were just dragging on the ground as the dogs saw me, started yapping and ran over to play. Which only made me a little nervous. They were all excited by my presence, and finally one of them jumped up on me, tail wagging, muddy feet on my pants and shirt. Yuck!

After a quick exchange with the dog people about what "leashed" means, I continued up to the waterfall.

My cameras all allow you to save different settings in memory banks, so that you can switch easily from "normal" (auto-most things), to "sports" (fast shutter, wide aperture, handheld) to "landscape" (slow shutter, tripod, moderate aperture, 2 second delay timer, manual focus override) by just turning a dial. As I had been shooting a grandkid's baseball game last weekend, the landscape settings had been messed up. So I spent a few minutes - and a couple of suboptimal shots - getting this setup right, and saved into memory bank 2.

The effect of shutter speed, May 2016

I took a number of shots with different filter combinations. The CP (polariser) cuts the glare in the water and wet rocks, and sometimes lets you see to the bottom of the stream. The ND (neutral density) cuts down the light coming in, allowing longer exposures and the silky water effect. You can easily see the difference between 1/90 second, 1/20 second and 4 seconds in the picture. Different people like different versions. Even I like different versions, depending on the scene and my mood.

I've noticed that really big waterfalls, which have a huge volume of water hurtling over a cliff, tend to need less silkiness. Wimpy waterfalls like this one tend to need more to look at all interesting. I expect we'll see a lot of really big, powerful waterfalls in Iceland.

I spent 15 or 20 minutes shooting the wimpy waterfall, then left. No further encounters with muddy dogs.

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(1) You did have a specific image in mind when you pressed the shutter button, didn't you?

 

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans