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Robert
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Waterfall Swallet is something I only discovered earlier this year in Derbyshire. It's a sinkhole in limestone with a small river dropping over the edge, down a limestone cliff, then a few yards on, disappearing into clefts in the rock, quite a magical place. It's located near the small village of Foolow. In wet times the clefts can't dispose of the water fast enough, in which case it floods, maybe as much at 12 to 15 feet deep. I have visited several times, most recently on my way to meet with Graham and Eric at Frampton RSPB. On this occasion I wanted to try to capture star trails through the tree canopy. The challenge was to also get a half decent image of the waterfall too, in the middle of the night. Fortunately it was a moonless night, one less complication. I tried several ways to illuminate the waterfall and rock face, with a torch and by using my SB800 flash, hand held, making multiple flashes at 1:128 power during 30 second exposures. I used the D3 with the 16mm f/2.8 lens. I made about ten exposures of the waterfall then locked the camera down and set the intervalometer to make 30 second exposures at 45 second intervals, started the intervalometer and retired to the car for about half an hour. This was about 2am. I wanted to get moving because I wasn't sure how long it would take me to get down to Frampton marsh.  I have to say the star trail exposures are far from perfect, the sky should have been blue, not grainy grey. Also, I should have made the image upright, that would have included the bottom of the waterfall and more sky, bu these things only become apparent after the event, will try harder next time. The image is a collage, the lower half a single exposure, the upper half, sky made from about 25 exposures which were processed in StarstaX star processing software which creates the star trails. Some cloning and erasing done in Photoshop, returning to Lightroom then using NIK filters to extract more detail and an effect which seemed to get the most from the image, despite leaving it somewhat grainy. So, my somewhat clumsy attempt to make a waterfall and star trail combination photograph. |
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Eric
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Robert wrote:Waterfall Swallet is something I only discovered earlier this year in Derbyshire. Looks a very nice place! And super job. A minor point...I would have liked the star trails a bit more prevalent. Have you tried playing with layer modes? You might be able to get the star trails more evident by using darker, lighter, overlay to name but a few. Presumably you put the star trails under the waterfall layer? Try a third layer with the stars on top and another mode. Multiply is another good one to increase contrast. Of course you can back off the opacity and do other stuff to minimise interference with foliage. Just a thought. Very nice work so far.  Sorry just reread your explanation re the collage. As you haven't got stars on separate layer from THIS shoot....why can't you use a plain sky shot of trails from another occasion as the third layer? |
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Robert
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Eric wrote:Looks a very nice place! And super job. I probably didn't describe clearly. I took about 25 exposures of the sky but they weren't well exposed. Hence the grey. I usually make several test exposures of the sky to get the right exposure by varying the ISO mainly and the aperture a little, sometimes reducing the shutter speed to 25 seconds. I was really testing the concept of trying to combine a light-painted rock face and the star trails. Usually I would have expected a very dark blue sky and a range of colours from ruby through white to sapphire in the stars. The sky was just grainy grey with completely blown white stars, suggesting over exposure? No amount of experimentation with the layers improved anything except perhaps contrast. Also the boundary between the top of the rock face and the sky was just a black band, which was difficult to do anything with. It might be that it would be better to make the exposures of the rock and waterfall in the twilight, just before dark, rather than rely on flash alone, although I did use flash in daylight with good effect, because even in daylight it's pretty dark down there. Perhaps even bracket several exposures as darkness descends. I have also considered using a small lamp lit continuously near the camera, even my head torch which I used to egress the scene then on my return to the camera on dim red, provided some illumination which had it been steady and constant would have improved the entire picture, shadows are another issue, I had to remove some harsh shadows from the flash. I will re-visit on a good night, spend much more time and apply what I learnt that night, hopefully get something much better. It's a special place, a bit rugged but massive potential. I probably could layer in another sky, after all it's exactly the same, just a different day! If a future attempt fails I might just do that, in a way this was just a reccey to find out what might work. I didn't want to spend too long because I wanted to get to Frampton with time for forty winks before you arrived, else I would have been even dopier than I was! |
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Graham Whistler
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1st Class well done very dramatic pix! |
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