Waterfall Swallet - new images added

[David Paterson]

Some excellent images in the new set - I like the wider, more general shots and also those which concentrate on the array of icicles. I feel that the closer shots of the waterfall itself are let down by the mound of dirty ice at the bottom.

[Anthony]

Lovely photos, you were well rewarded for the risks you took getting there.

[Erik Lund]

The first series is really nice and crisp and differs to ordinary waterfall images in a very nice way.


I don't like the super wide look, gives very strange perspective here,,, I like water behaving according to gravity 

[simato73]

It seems to me an ideal candidate for a 180-360º panorama.  That would be tricky in snow!   

You would have to do it with a drone, I reckon it would work well if you can avoid a crash against the branches.

[simato73]

The first series is really nice and crisp and differs to ordinary waterfall images in a very nice way.


I don't like the super wide look, gives very strange perspective here,,, I like water behaving according to gravity 

Said the man who made beautiful pictures of waterfalls with a 6mm circular fisheye...

[simato73]

Some excellent images in the new set - I like the wider, more general shots and also those which concentrate on the array of icicles. I feel that the closer shots of the waterfall itself are let down by the mound of dirty ice at the bottom.

I will disclose that my favourites are the first two from the new snowy series.

[Erik Lund]

Said the man who made beautiful pictures of waterfalls with a 6mm circular fisheye...

That's too funny

[Akira]

#6351 in the winter set looks just great!

[Seapy]

On Saturday, despite a bad cold, I braved the elements, my son Christopher and I had a little expedition to the Swallet waterfall. It's about 140 miles from home, but due to not having fitted my GPS to my fresh car yet we managed several more, by exploring other alternative routes! 

We arrived about 1ish, the light wasn't ideal but the rain kept off while we were there.  We found the path down into the sinkhole and slithered down to explore before deciding what gear to take in.  My primary objective was to try my new panorama head but it was quickly obvious that wasn't going to be an option because the whole of the basin was flooded well over a metre deep.

While the waterfall may be a bit more spectacular after rain, I think I would prefer it without flood water.  It seems the high tide mark is well higher than another metre above Saturdays level, presumably after really heavy, prolonged rain.

Apart from one couple, for whom I don't think photography was part of their plans, we didn't see another soul while we were there.

I opted for the D3 and my 20mm f/2.8 AF with 16mm fisheye and SB-800 in my pocket.

The light down in the bottom was even worse and I found the SB-800 flash at 1/128 just helped enough to provide some contrast without blowing everything.

All these were taken with the 20mm.   I ended up so muddy, wet and cold that I wasn't prepared to risk changing lenses.  Fitting the flash was challenge enough.

This is looking back up the muddy path to the gate, before Christopher managed to fall on his backside and cover himself in mud!!!



The view from the fallen trees about half way down...



The waterfall, unfortunately rather too prominent shadow from the flash.



Tried to subdue the yellow in the moss on the rock, not sure if I succeeded?





Many thanks to Simone for this thread, I intend to revisit on a nice day when the leaves start to burst, then again in autumn.  Was a really nice days outing.

I am sure under more favourable conditions it will provide a nice venue for a 360/180 panorama.

[simato73]

Wow! I have never seen that place so full! (not that I go there that often...).
Also incredibly muddy - and I thought it was bad when I visited...
Amazingly different, thanks for posting.

[Seapy]

My pleasure Simone, the mud was tenacious I haven't completely got rid of it yet.

Christopher took some pictures too but I haven't had time to look through them yet.

Driving through Stockport brought back memories of a past life, when I used to go scouring scrap yards for spares to repair my mate's wagon back in the early 1970's.  Also New Mills, where I used to buy nuts bolts and screws from a chap called KR Whisden.

[Seapy]

Simone has kindly advised me that the trees are starting to leaf up in the area now, so tomorrow I plan to drive down in the hope that the floods have receded and the trees are a nice bright spring green so I can use my Panorama head for the first time.

If possible I would like to try to do a star trail or some other astro photography if possible but according to the forecast there will be full cloud cover. 

[armando_m]

I seem to have missed two images I wanted to post, here they go...

Fantastic images
 

[Seapy]

Well thanks to Simone, we made it to Swallet on Sunday but I was stranded at Lancaster for all of Monday on domestic duties. 

I have made my first panorama with the crescent style pano head which I made earlier in the year.  It worked perfectly but my photographic skills were challenged by the conditions.  The flooding had subsided but it was still pretty muddy. There was still sufficient water to make a nice waterfall.  The problem was the bright sky, which, actually wasn't THAT bright.  Looking upwards through the trees the sky appeared bright because down in the sinkhole it's pretty dark by comparison.  It was largely cloudy with occasional patches of blue sky, sometimes the sun would shine through and the fresh green leaves sparkled in the sunlight.

I decided the only way was going to be to bracket the exposures, 5 exposures at 0.3 EV increments.  I made the first set of six around with the camera facing down 30º, then six around facing upwards 30º, which covers the entire sky.  I moved the tripod and took the five bracketed exposures of the nadir.

Checking the results they seemed very under exposed so I decided to run another set with 9 exposures at 0.3 EV increments just to be sure, digital film's free, right?  Getting the sky exposure right was difficult, by comparison with the waterfall the sky was so bright.

My design of the pano head worked exactly as I had hoped, I will use my infra red remote next time though, that will make it much easier to operate the camera.

I have run the sets of images through Adobe Lightroom Classic to create the HDR sets, then I stitched the panorama in PTGui but I am still running in demo mode so not all features are available to me. Plus the final output is covered in watermarks, which is a bit frustrating.  I have worked my way around it for now.  I fully intend buying a full version in the near future but not today!

On major issue I have is the nadir image flags up as landscape, while all the pano images are portrait orientation. This seems to confuse the heck out of the software so for now I have abandoned the idea of stitching in the nadir.

The first image is while I was adding control points, the second is a rough panorama, 360º around and probably 150º vertical.

D3, Nikkor 16mm f/2.8 fisheye, @ f/8, ~1/160 Sec, ISO800