Chasing waterfalls?

There, I did it. I went chasing waterfalls. More specifically, I went chasing after Calcutta Falls along the North Fork American. 

While I've been out to Calcutta Falls a few times this season, I've never been able to take a decent shot of the falls itself. The last time I was out there, a photographer was taking a 30 second exposure of the falls. Since I lacked a tripod at the time, all I could do was watch with envy.

Several weeks and many expensive purchases later, I made my way back to the falls armed with my brand new carbon fiber travel tripod and freshly mounted Shortstache Everyday filter.

The Everyday filter caught my attention early on. Aside from its fancy marketing and oh-so-desirable mute green anodized filter threads, it's basically a 1/4 strength black mist filter combined with a CPL. Being that I shoot mostly around water, I figured it'd be a great way to cut glare as well as acquiring  nice bloomed out highlights. It also reduces exposure by about a stop, making it easier to expose longer without blowing out my highlights, even at ISO 100. 

Before I left, I snapped a few shots of my wet Tundra. I wish I fully captured the bumper sticker on the back window, but I guess that's for another time.


Tamron 17-70 @51mm, f2.8, 1/80, ISO400. I dig the texture of the rain drops on the body of the truck.

Glancing at the forecast as I swerved my way down 49 to the Confluence, I noticed some incoming rain. No matter, I have a rain jacket. Besides, it's 35% and that's way too low to be concerned about. 

I was wrong, as I often am with the weather. So on goes the rain coat and out comes the lens cloth. The curious thing about the Everyday filter is that it prevents the use of a lens hood. Which I think might be by design, as a lens hood and CPL are very difficult to use together. In any case, here's what I ended up with (in between furious lens wiping sessions). 


@23mm, f13, 15s, ISO 100. A decent shot, though just really generic. Sure it's a waterfall, sure it's a long exposure, but other than that I don't think there's really anything striking about it. 

@43mm, 6s, f5.0, ISO 100. Something different here, a little bit more interesting.



@70mm, 20s, f9.0, ISO 100. And my favorite shot of the trip. Tight with a nice comforting brown color to the water. I find myself tracing each individual water spout through its path. Neat.

@48mm, 1/80, f2.8, ISO 640. I've taken this shot before, but cut out the railing on the left. So I returned to get the framing correct. This time I increased texture in Lightroom to draw out the rough feeling of the bridge concrete. Did it work? You decide. 


Thanks for listening to my rambling, until next time.























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