An update

If you’re a follower of the blog you will probably have noticed that things have been quiet here for a few months. I have still been posting occasional images to my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ScottWarnerPhotography but even that has been a little sporadic. Due to some family circumstances I haven’t been out with the camera much but things are improving and hopefully I will start to be able to add some more regular updates here.

I hosted a photowalk with the Scenic Rim Photowalks at the Border Ranges national park over the weekend, if you have never been there it should definitely be on your list of places to go. We had a great time exploring some of the forests and the lookouts of the the area. This is one image from a creek crossing on the Brindle Creek track which follows the creek through some of the most beautiful rainforest around.

Photo tip: Smoothing moving water –  Getting a shot like this is pretty straightforward if you have a camera with some degree of control. This was taken at 1.3 seconds which gives enough length to show the water movement but still shows some of the detail without it getting that really milky texture. I used a ISO 100 and f9.0 to get a good amount of the frame in focus and properly expose the image. A tripod is essential and sometimes tricky to place in the middle of a creek, try hanging some weight off it to keep it stable.

Sometimes you may need a darkening filter (called a Neutral Density or ND) to get the right settings if it is too bright, but fortunately this was on the rainforest floor which is a pretty dark place to start with. A challenge for this shot was the spots of light coming through the trees that are much brighter and make it extremely difficult to get a good exposure. I composed my photo to avoid these as much as possible and picked out this small area of the crossing which had a pretty uniform light over it. You can see some of these ‘hot spots’ of light in the background beyond the bridge.