Oakland Falls - Hazelbrook, Australia

Oakland Falls - Hazelbrook, Australia 

Oakland falls was the second waterfall we visited on our walk last week (the first was Burgess Falls).  It was about fifteen minutes away from the first waterfall. Although the walk was not long, the path was in very bad condition as it is not used on a regular basis. Surprisingly we didn't see anyone else walking in the area on the day we visited. This is very unusual for a walk in the Blue Mountains as the area is constantly full of people.

More images after the jump.

The creek below Oakland Falls - Hazelbrook, Australia

Although we are in the middle of summer, it has been raining a bit and I was expecting more water in the creek and a bigger waterfall. Unfortunately I was out of luck and there wasn't too much water.  I'll probably visit the area in winter and photograph the falls when they are at their best.

Oakland Falls - Hazelbrook, Australia

The rocks along the creek bed were covered in moss and I used them in the foreground in a lot of my compositions. The dappled sunlight which was filtering through the canopy really enhanced the green and gave the images a "fresh" look.

Oakland Falls - Hazelbrook, Australia

I included a number of trees in my compositions to frame the waterfall and to convey a sense of depth. If I do visit the area again, I think I would try and add a bit more flowing water from the creek to my compositions with the aim of creating another level of interest to the image.

The creek below Oakland Falls - Hazelbrook, Australia

All images on this post were captured with a Canon 7d and a Canon 24 - 105mm lens. A tripod and circular polariser were used for all these shots. Exposure times were around the 1 second mark and a tripod was used.

Burgess Falls - Hazelbrook, Australia

Burgess Falls - Hazelbrook, Australia

Last Wednesday was Australia day and a public holiday in Sydney. We decided to make the most of it and head up to the blue mountains for a walk. It was supposed to be 40 degrees in Sydney and the beaches would have been packed so we were looking forward to some cooler weather and fewer people. I had found a couple of waterfalls, which were away from the usual tourist route, some time ago and we thought we'd visit them.

More images and info inside.

Burgess Falls - Hazelbrook, Australia

The walk itself was not the easiest to find as it is not very popular and not marked too well. The only indication as to where the path started was a small board on the side of the road. The path itself was overgrown and would have been quite hard to make out as the path descended from the road. Most of the walk ran along a creek which fed the two waterfalls we visited.

Burgess Falls - Hazelbrook, Australia

The first photograph on this post was actually produced by stitching 21 separate images together. I had the 24-105mm lens with me but I wasn't able to get back far enough from the falls to compose an image with the entire waterfall in the frame. As it is summer there isn't too much water in the creek and the falls themselves don't look as impressive as they would in winter or spring. Another visit seems inevitable.

Burgess Falls - Hazelbrook, Australia

I had the 7D with me and used a tripod and a circular polariser for these images.

Leura Cascades - Blue Mountains, Australia

Leura Cascades - Blue Mountains, Australia 

I went up to the Blue Mountains with Dean Toh last weekend to shoot the Leura Cascades. It was a 4.00AM start for us, as we wanted to make it up there while the light was good. The waterfall, as the name implies, is a series of small drops along a rocky slope. The largest of the drops is a couple of meters in height.

More images after the jump.

Leura Cascades - Blue Mountains, Australia

I've got hooked on taking panoramas and I managed to capture a couple of decent ones during this outing. The shot above is one of the bigger drops of the cascades. It's about a meter and a half in height.  I decided to compose this as a panorama because I felt that the ferns on either side of the stream and the moss covered rocks along the creek bed added interest and framed the actual waterfall itself. I created this panorama by stitching 16 images.

Leura Cascades - Blue Mountains, Australia

This is the last and the largest drop along the Leura Cascades. It is the same section of the falls as the first image on this post. I wanted to go for a portrait format on this one to capture the lush vegetation above the waterfall. I feel the vegetation balances out the composition while the waterfall remains the primary focus of the image.

Leura Cascades - Blue Mountains, Australia

This photograph was taken at the top of the waterfall and shows a few of the smaller drops that I spoke about earlier. I captured it as a panorama to emphasise the flowing water. If I used a standard 3 x 2 composition for this one, I would have not been able to capture the entire waterfall and the vegetation in the one frame. This panorama was created by stitching 8 images.

Leura Cascades - Blue Mountains, Australia

This is a close up of the drop which I captured in the first panorama on this post. I managed to get to an exposed rock in the middle of the stream to set up for this one. All these images were captured with a Canon 7D and the 24-105mm lens. I also used a circular polariser and a tripod as these were long exposures (most of them were 4 seconds).

Leura Cascades - Blue Mountains, Australia

Somersby Falls - Part II

The Main Waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

The Somersby Falls picnic area in the Brisbane Waters national park, on the central coast of New South Wales, is the starting point of a short walk along Mooney Mooney Creek. A number of decent sized waterfalls are within a ten or twenty minute walk from the picnic area. The first, and most impressive, of these is the waterfall pictured above. More images and info after the jump.

A Closeup of the main waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

One of the most interesting compositional elements of the main waterfall, in my opinion, is the branch which extends across the water fall from the left of the frame (shown in the image above). I think it helps convey a sense of depth in the  images of the waterfall.

A section of the lower falls - Somersby Falls, Australia

The drop of the second fall is not as big as the main waterfall but the rocks, moss and leaves make for some interesting compositions. I didn't have any ND filters on this trip and had to rely on an aperture of f22 to get  a suitable shutter speed required to capture the silky feel of flowing water. We got there quite early in the morning and fortunately the sun wasn't too harsh at the time.

The main waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

The wet moss and ferns growing on the rocks along the creek add a lot of colour and interest to the images of the creek. The fact that the area is very rocky allows photographers to capture interesting compositions of small sections of the falls themselves.

A section of the main waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

Somersby Falls is only around an hours drive on the F3 from our place in Sydney. I've been up there on three occasions already and will definitely head up there again. It's probably best to visit in late July or early August as the winter rain would ensure a decent amount of water flowing through the creek.

A section of the main waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

All images on this post were captured using a Canon 7D and the 24-105mm lens. The aperture was set to f22 and the ISO of 100 for all the images on this post.

More images of Somersby Falls

• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2010/08/somersby-falls-part-i.html
• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2009/09/somersby-falls.html

Somersby Falls - Part I

Somersby Falls - Brisbane Waters National Park

I've visited Somersby falls on two previous occasions and spent a fair bit of time photographing the three waterfalls. I went up there again last Sunday with Dean Toh and spent a couple of hours wondering around, photographing the different sections of the falls. The panorama above was one of the highlights of the day.  More info on this shot after the jump.

*The panorama was created using ten images.

In order to create a panorama which is made up of multiple images, a tripod is essential. Ideally the images would be shot in "manual" mode so that each of them are captured with identical settings. When capturing the images it is also important to ensure that there is a substantial overlap between adjacent images. This makes it easier to identify control points between them. These control points are used during the stitching processes.

During post processing I double check all the settings paying particular attention to the colour balance, fill light and blacks. All settings have to be identical across all images to ensure the final panorama is smooth. Stitching the images together is straightforward process and can be completed in any image processing software.

This image has to be viewed large for the details to really stand out. The final image was jpeg file which was over 10MB in size.

The images were captured using a Canon 7D and a Canon 24-105mm lens.

Other Shots of Somersby Falls

• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2009/09/somersby-falls.html
• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2010/08/somersby-falls-part-ii.html

Somersby Falls

Click here for techs.

Somersby falls is a situated in the Brisbane waters national park, an hour and a halfs drive north of Sydney.

The falls are easily accessible from a popular picnic area which has parking facilities.  A path and off the picnic area leads you down to the creek.

Photographers can easily spend hours on end photographing the stream and the falls. I followed the creek downstream from the base of the main waterfall and came across two other smaller falls. The image above was a small section of the second one which I focused on.

I loved the way the sun was filtering through the branches overhead and tried to include the spots of light in my composition. I feel the leaves and the light work well in the foreground and give the image another layer of interest. I used a long shutter speed and ND filters to make the water look silky.

Sylvia Falls

Wentworth Falls

Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales, Australia.

Katoomba Falls

The foot of Katoomba falls in the Blue Mountains National Park.