During my recent trip to Chikmagalur, I visited this small waterfall in Jerry estate which offered a good opportunity to try out various compositions. Unfortunately I wasn’t carrying my vario ND filter so couldn’t get a slower shutter speed than this, but since I’ll be going back there in December I’ll know to be better prepared.

In many circumstances people say that “location is everything”, and that definitely was the case with this waterfall. The maximum depth of the pool at it’s base was probably 2 ft, so we could walk around and check various angles to shoot from with very little risk. The fact that there was no heavy current allowed us to easily stand in the flowing water to get low-level shots.

A good sturdy tripod with a shutter release cable is necessary to get silky flow images. Using mirror lock up is important in these kind of shots as well. Vario ND filter helps a lot to cut down light and get you very low shutter speeds. A shutter speed of 5 seconds to 20 seconds help acchieve different perspective images.

Canon 1DX + Canon 17-40 f/4L, ISO 50, f22 @ 1/2 sec, evaluative metering + 1/3 Stop, aperture priority.

I used ISO 50 and f22 and over exposed by 1/3 stop to get the slowest shutter speed possible. Missed the vario ND filter