Spring Melt

[casil403]

Took this stream shot yesterday while out in driving in the mountains.
C&C's appreciated as always....

[jjeling]

I really want to say something. However, before I continue, it would be nice to hear what you have to say about this. It is difficult to critique your own image sometimes, but its necessary. Now that we have seen you dramatically improve your work, lets hear what you have to say about it.....

[casil403]

Hmmmm...well JJ, here's my on my photo..

I think the snow on the left is slightly blown out which means yet again, I probably overexposed the shot...still having trouble with over/under exposing. and picking the correct exposure. I think I took this in shutter priority though.
I think I like it better in B&W personally but I thought I would show the coloured version. it's got a bit of a yellowish tinge to it...not sure why that happened, but it bugs me a little hence the B&W. i also might want to crop the bottom of it a little to get rid of that grass in the left corner. however in the BW shot it blends in so not sure if a crop is necessary in that photo..
I like the softness of the water and the composition of the rocks at the bottom of the stream and the way my eye moves down the falls of the creek....I think I did okay in that area this time.
That's about it.... feel free to add anything else.

[casil403]

Here's the B&W version of the same shot for comparison.

[jjeling]

Very good summary IMO.
You did extremely well in a very difficult situation. Here is why...
Snow reflects a LOT of light. It makes for very fast shutter speeds. To achieve soft water, you must slow down the shutter speed. When you combine the two, it turns into a volatile mix. A slow shutter speed will always blow the detail in the snow, in turn, properly exposed snow will always produce sharp details water.

For the story you are trying to tell, this is about as good as your going to get in one image. However, with a little more time and patience at this site, you could have taken several different exposures, and worked them together in an HDR image to really turn this scene into a colorful wonder. If you can go back soon, I would definitly give it a try. I think your composition is pefect for this story. There are probably a million different ways to capture this scene, but for your purpose this is good.

The second one is the winner for me. It looks to be the best Ive seen from you so far from what I can remember is yours. Not quite a wall hanger/poster yet. But it is awefully close. If you like it that is all that matters anyways. These are just my thoughts, hope they helped.

[Gem]

The image looks tilted to me. Plus I find the snow distracting since it's only in one corner...maybe if there had been any in the bottom corner, it might have been okay.

On the plus side, looovveee the movement of the water! And the colour of the rocks

[casil403]

I took a ton of shots of this little creek in all different kinds of exposures and settings...however I do not know anything about HDR...not even what the acronym stands for....

[jjeling]

High Dynamic Range - it is a fun little process to get familiar with. Ive only tried it a few times. Havent really given it much effort. Some people focus solely on these types of images. A few have been posted here. You would recognize one if you saw one, probably just didnt know the term for it. Do yourself a favor and do a quick search on the internet for "HDR Photograph" You will get some good results.
Basically, its a number of photographs merged into one. It can be done numerous ways, but it is done to prevent loss of detail due too much or not enough exposure. Sorry, kind of hard to explain, your better off hearing that one from someone else.

Search "High Dynamic Range" for a better explanation

[Mad Aussie]

What a cool little cascade you found there Casil.

As JJ said, it's actually a difficult little shot to take.

If you used Shutter Priority then the camera will be fooled for sure by the brightness of the snow IF you used evaluative or even partial metering. If you used centre or spot you might have had a better result ... perhaps.

The best thing to do here in my opinion if you wanted to get this in single shot would have been to use Manual and set the shutter speed for the water appearance you wanted and then set the aperture to get that snow about right and accept the falls being a bit dark in spots. You could lighten them later in PP. I'd probably use use Aperture Bracketing function just to get a wider choice.

It does a yellow cast that could be lowered a bit in PP. Shooting it with different White Balance options might have been a good idea also at the time. If you shot it in RAW you could now select those and see which you like best. In RAW you could also maybe recover some of that lost snow detail too.

Another option aside from B&W might be to use a slight blue hue. You may have seen Dwayne's waterfall recently where he put a fair bit of blue into it and I asked him to back it off a bit and the opinions seem to favour that. The slight blue kind of enhances the coldness in the scene whereas the yellow tends to go against what we are seeing here.

[kat]

Well..seems everyone summed it up pretty good. Really like the water flow!