Butcher Hill Falls

These two photos are of Butcher Hill Falls in Upper Stewiacke. I took these photos because I always wanted to take a long exposure of a waterfall. These photos were taken in early May 2011. These two photos are my all time favourite photos that I have taken.

For Camera settings for these photos I put my camera in shutter priority and set the shutter speed for 30 seconds. I then put my camera on my tripod to minimize movement and screwed what is called a neutral density filter on the end of my lens. ND filters allow for longer exposures during the day by limiting the amount of light that enters the lens. less light equals a longer shutter speed. ND filters come in different strengths. for this photo I used 2 filters put together, ND4 and ND8,  to allow me to get a 30 second exposure.

For these pictures I used different processing settings. For the top photo I turned vibrance all the way down, making the photo almost black and white to make the wet rocks darker and to make the water stand out. Then I turned the saturation up to bring out the colour of the grass and the trees enough that it wasn't overpowering the rest of the image. If I would have done it the other way around the wet rocks would have come out slightly green because of the moss and algae drawing more focus to them instead of the water.

The bottom image I wanted to look a little more traditional so I turned up the vibrance and the blacks a tiny bit to boost colour and shadows and left the saturation alone.