Shutter-life|Adaptive photography and more, by Henrik Johansson

Royal Arch Cascade is one of the lesser known waterfalls in Yosemite Valley, despite its impressive 1250 ft drop. The water volumes are quite low and the fall is usually dry by June. The fall is not that easy to spot - the low flow makes it hard to see the fall from a distance and it’s often shielded by trees when you get a bit closer. This also makes it hard to get a good shot of the fall. From far away, the fall will be small and hard to spot in the photo. If you venture closer, the trees makes it nearly impossible to get a good composition. When you go all the way to the bottom of the fall, the lighting conditions are very bad. The bottom is usually in deep shadows while the upper part is in full sun light.

This is a hand held shot of the base of the fall. I used a shutter speed of 1/10s to get the water to blur a bit. The composition turned out nicely, and I didn’t find any crop that I think can enhance the shot. The upper left of the shot was a bit to dark, and I used the new adjustment brush in Lightroom 2 to locally increase the exposure. As I usual, I increased the contrast with the tone curve. I also had to add a bit of fill light to get the lighting I wanted. Finally, I’d liked the photo to have a warmer feel. I made some changes to the hue for the yellow and orange tone. The stone now had the color I wanted, but the water felt cold and had a slightly blue tone that didn’t fit into the general feeling of the photo. To remedy this, I applied the same yellow/orange tone to the highlights as I use for my sunsets shots. After the change to the highlights, the color tones of the water matched the tones of the stone.