This is an entry for my [ilink url=”http://www.alexwisephotography.net/blog/category/technique/before-and-after-technique/” style=”note”]Before and After series of photographs[/ilink] where I share how I captured and post processed an image. This particular image is from Hopetoun Falls looking back down river of the water that runs off from the main fall. Hopetoun Falls forms part of the Otways Ranges and is a beautiful part of the world. If you’d like to see more photos from this trip be sure to check out my [ilink url=”http://www.alexwisephotography.net/blog/2013/12/08/weekend-trip-down-the-great-ocean-road/” style=”note”]post from the Great Ocean Road[/ilink] which includes this among many.

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Capturing and Editing Sunlight at Hopetoun Falls

This is one of those photographs that as a photographer, we view it through our eyes and then when we try to capture it in camera it’s incredibly difficult to replicate what our eye is seeing. On this particular day we had shot the waterfall most of the day under overcast conditions (perfect for photographing waterfalls). Later during our time at Hopetoun Falls, the cloud started to clear and the sun began to shine stunningly through the trees. Rather than pack up my gear like I normally would when the sun starts shining harshly at a waterfall I wanted to try pull off a shot of the sun bursting through the trees.

Taking the Photo

Bracketed images that would be later stitched and combined in Photoshop

Framing the photo straight away I knew if I wanted to get both the stream and sun bursting through the trees in shot I would have to take two photos and stitch them together. Even though I was shooting with a Canon 17-40 it still wasn’t wide enough to fit in the one shot so a two image stitch would be the go. Shooting the images I’m using my Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40, Hoya Circular Polariser and Manfrotto tripod.

I also knew that trying to capture the dynamic range properly in one shot for each stitch was going to be very difficult. Not one to normally use the auto bracketing exposure (AEB) feature on my camera, I opted to take 3 exposures of the top half of the stitch and another 3 for the bottom part of the stitch which resulted in a slight mess of images in my Lightroom catalogue.

In case you’re not familiar with the AEB feature I wrote [ilink url=”http://www.alexwisephotography.net/blog/2013/01/12/automatic-exposure-bracketing-aeb-explained/”]article about Auto Exposure Bracketing[/ilink] a while ago now which explains the feature a little more. I took the multiple exposures as it provided me with some insurance that if I didn’t get it right with the neutral exposure I would also have the under and over exposed images to play with.

Combining and Editing the Photos

When it comes to exposure blending my level of competency is around average so the idea of combining this with a two image stitch was a recipe for disaster. I processed the images from the trip and let the images for this one sit for a while. Normally when I shoot, I like to process my images within 24 hours of taking them. I hate the feeling of sitting on unedited images and like to get them processed, not necessarily to post online but just to have them processed according to how I remembered the scene. For this one, I was actually too intimidated by the prospect ahead and knew I was in for some fun in Photoshop.

It wasn’t until a weekend a few weeks later that I finally decided to give combining and editing the images a crack.

Combining The Photos

Having used auto exposure bracketing to capture an under, neutral and over exposed image for both the top and bottom parts of the frame, I went about creating two image stitches for each bracket.

By this I mean, I created a two image stitch of the two over exposed images, again for the neutrally exposed images and another for the under exposed images. This resulted in 3 separate stitched images consisting of 1 over exposed stitch, 1 neutral exposed stitch and 1 under exposed stitch.

When stitching images, most people tend to recommend various different pieces of software like PTGui but I’ve had quite good luck with the Photoshop stitch tool. This can be found under File > Automate > Photomerge.

Editing the Photos

[box type=”info”]Haven’t blended images in Photoshop before? Read my Photoshop image blending tutorial to get started[/box]

Now that I had these 3 separate image stitches of each exposure, I went about opening the neutral image in Photoshop and layering the over and under exposed images as layers on top. The over exposed image would be used to bring out the dynamic range in the foliage surrounding the waterfall and the waterfall itself while the under exposed layer would be used to capture the sun bursting through the trees. Luckily, it wasn’t as hard as I originally thought but just required a lot of low opacity layer masking to subtly bring out areas of a layer. The hardest part was blending the sun into the shot which required me to use a combination of the brush tool and gradient masks to ever subtly drop it back in without it looking uneven to the rest of the scene.

I’ve attached a screenshot to the right which highlights the different parts of the image where layer masks from the 3 images were used. Call me lazy but I’ve become a fan of the [ilink url=”http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-photoshop-cc/using-contentaware-fill-to-remove-distractions/”]Adobe Photoshop Content Aware Tool[/ilink] which for the most part works perfectly. Generally if this doesn’t work I’ll revert back to the [ilink url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY023ZQJy0M”]Adobe Clone Stamp Tool[/ilink] to remove unwanted distractions like the branch in the corner and lens flare at the bottom of the stream.

Once all the images were blended in, I then went about making selective adjustments to the saturation and individual colour channels to colour grade parts of the image. I’m fond of using layer masks for saturation changes as it allows you to increase or decrease the saturation or change the hue of a particular area in the image without affecting the overall photo. For this image, I used selective saturation and hue adjustments to both the water and foliage areas.

Finally some cropping was applied to the image and a warming filter was applied to add some warmth to the sunburst coming through the trees. With this I used a layer mask to ensure changes with the warming filter were only limited to the sunburst and not the rest of the image.

And that’s that. Something I learnt from this photo was that sometimes it’s okay to sit on an image and procrastinate about it rather than process it immediately. Sometimes I should probably do a bit more often.

Thanks for reading and I hope this was helpful,

– Alex

Exploring the Great Ocean Road

After living in Melbourne for almost 3 years it didn’t feel right that I hadn’t been down to the Great Ocean Road since moving over. Hyped for its stunning coast line and beautiful waterfalls I had been itching to get down there and take some photos. After planning it for a while now, I finally made my way down to the Great Ocean Road and the Great Otways National Park headed towards Wye River with some friends and it did not disappoint.

As much as I love living in inner city Melbourne, I do miss being able to jump in the car and get to great coastline within 30-45 minutes like I would previously when living in Hobart and fire off some photos. So whenever an opportunity arises to get out and photograph some of Victoria’s coastline I’m always eager to go. A while ago now two friends and I decided to plan for a weekend trip down to the area for a lazy weekend and photography.

Jan Juc

We decided to leave after work on Friday night and Melbourne being Melbourne quickly got caught in peak hour traffic. Rather than let the night go to waste we took a little detour to get some photos of the sunset as we made our way down. A quick look on Google Maps and we settled on Jan Juc. I’m pretty sure the decision was made on name alone. But luckily for us, the beach didn’t disappoint and was topped off with a stunning sunset.

The first photo was captured with a set up of the Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40, tripod, B+W 110 10 stop filter and a .9 Cokin Z-Pro neutral density filter to darken the sky. One downside to using the Cokin graduated filters (other than the slight colour cast) is that you have to be careful where you position the filter. For this shot I positioned the filter on an angle (think 10pm on a clock) to have the filter coming down from the corner. This avoided the cliffs being gradually darkened which would of occured if placed at the 12 oclock position and going directly from top to bottom. For this reason graduated neutral density filters while great, definitely have their short comings and something you may want to consider if looking to purchase some.

Jan Juc Sunset — Sunset at Jan Juc (5 minute long exposure)

Ronnie Ling — Ronnie shooting at Jan Juc (Taken with my Fujifilm X100)

You have to kill time waiting for the sunset somehow right?

Wye River

As we continued down further we eventually made our way to Wye River a little later than originally planned. Wye River is a quiet little town situated along the Great Ocean Road that’s less touristy and more relaxed. I much prefer it over Apollo Bay which is often swamped with tourists.

Wye River has a stunning beach, pub, cafe and makes a great spot to situate yourself for exploring the rest of the Great Ocean Road. Our plan for the weekend was to shoot some seascapes around the area and explore inland with a trip to the Great Otway National Park which is home to Beauchamp Falls and Hopetoun Falls. Both waterfalls I had been wanting to get to for sometime now but being around 3 hours from Melbourne are a little too far for a day trip.

DSCF0171 — Jon capturing the sunset at Wye River

Sunrise reflections at Wye River (3 minute long exposure)

The Great Otways National Park

After waking up early to shoot the sunrise at Wye River, we decided to grab a coffee and make our way more inland towards Hopetoun Falls and Beauchamp Falls. I had seen the two locations photographed many times before so I was keen to get down there and photograph them myself.

It was a cloudy morning as wet set off from Wye River but unfortunately on arrival to the Great Otway National Park, the sun began to slowly rise through the clouds and create patchy light over the waterfalls. While not ideal, I find if you are shooting with patchy sunlight that shooting slightly under exposed is a great way to avoid over exposure and provide you with a more even exposure. For some photos where there was patchy sun light in the photograph, I used the adjustment brush within Lightroom with the highlights and exposure decreased slightly and painted over the sun lit areas. It works well to create a more evenly lit scene. Once again, not ideal and I’d much prefer to be shooting in overlight conditions where the light is even but you have to make the most of what you’re given on the day right?

A while ago now I put together an article on waterfall photography. If you haven’t shot waterfalls before and looking to get started you may want to give it a read to get started. It’s nothing fancy but just goes through the basics on how I photograph waterfalls with some examples of shutter speed and some basic tips.

Hopetoun Falls - Alex Wise — Hopetoun Falls (2.5 sec long exposure)

Jon and Ronnie photographing Hopetoun Falls

Conditions were patchy at Hopetoun Falls with some harsh sunlight at times. It wasn't ideal but lucky for us the sun made way at times allowing for some photos — Conditions were patchy at Hopetoun Falls with some harsh sunlight at times. It wasn’t ideal but lucky for us the sun made way at times allowing for some photos

Doing my best to avoid the sun with this stream photo of Hopetoun Falls

Star Trails at Wye River

As part of getting down to Wye River we were also keen to shoot some star trails (a plan that was always pending what the weather had in store for us). Lucky for us, the weather and conditions were perfect for star trail photography. Generally star trails are best photographed around the new moon of every month. While not exactly the day of the new moon, our time at Wye River was a few days after the new moon (this sounds like a Twilight novel or something…) and the sky was clear which created great conditions for star trail photography.

I must admit, star trail photography is something I struggle with. I’m not sure whether it’s the impatience of waiting around for the exposure to complete (in this case 90 minutes) or just the bashing around in the pitch black dark but this time I didn’t want to let past experiences deter me so I set up on blue hour near ruins of an old jetty at Wye River. The plan was to take 10 minute exposures at F5 at ISO 100. Through taking 9 exposures at 10 minutes I then opened them as layers in Photoshop and set the layer modes to ‘Lighten’ which combines all the images and only keeps the lightest part of the images.

In hindsight I wish I shot for another 90 minutes to capture more of the star trails but with episodes of The Newsroom running low on my Nexus 7 (great show by the way!) and sitting alone in the dark I decided to call it a night with this being the final result. The beach is situated below the Great Ocean Road which created ambient light over the rocks and pylons which worked quite well.

Wye River Star Trails — Star trails at Wye River (90 minute long exposure)

Thanks

Apologies for the Great Ocean Road and Great Otways National Park image overload!

If you’re ever down this way I’d recommend you make the trip down. Most flock down this way to see the 12 Apostles but I’d take your time driving down as there’s a lot more to see along the Great Ocean Road beyond the 12 Apostles. I do hope to photograph the 12 Apostles one day but for the moment other parts of the Great Ocean Road have me tempted to further explore. Time to get another weekend organised I think…!

Hope you had a good weekend and thanks for reading.

– Alex

Tag: Hopetoun Falls

Before and After – Sunlight at Hopetoun Falls