A little Canadian Waterfall in the Evening

[fokker]

Yesterday afternoon I took a drive with a few friends to try and find a nearby (ish) waterfall called Morissey Falls. We never ended up finding the actual falls, but found this little spot instead at a tributary creek to the main river.

I found out today that we actually stopped at the entrance to the main falls but didn't find it, it was 50 meters from where I took this picture. :x

Never mind, I like the photo anyway.

Just for an idea of how edited this is, here is the original straight out of camera - feel free to post alternate edits.

 

[superasian]

Wow, the bokeh looks absolutely fantastic. It has sort of a 'photo-manip' look to it -- but don't take that the wrong way -- it's very pretty!

 

[JoshuaSimPhotography]

Amazing elements, Nice bokeh, and slow shutter speed and the glare really helps!

 

[timor]

IMHO I don't think flare is helping a bit in this image. It is a natural landscape and the colorful circles are a foreign element in it. Not natural. I can agree with a flare in cityscape as there is a lot of reflecting surfaces, but not there. Also I don't see much of a bokeh here, everything is pretty much inside DoF. I think in situation like this a polarizing filter and a hood would be very helpful and there will be no need for such an extensive post processing, almost repainting of that image.

 

[Rick58]

I also don't care for the flare. In fact, I'd love this image without it. For me it's just too distracting and takes away from the natural beauty of the scene.

 

[marcoborghesi]

I prefer the first shoot. And plus the flare in that case is great because complete,the high left corner.

 

[rexbobcat]

I like the flare. Without it this would just seem like another generic "beautiful" shot of a waterfall.

I do with that there was a little less of a flare streak near the middle, but I like it regardless

 

[fokker]

It's interesting to see the differences in opinion when it comes to lens flare - it's kind of like HDR, some love it and some hate it. Personally, I love it and often try to make it a feature of my photos.

My personal feeling on the photo is the same as rexbobcat - I could have easily arranged the shot (or at least a very similar composition) without any lens flare, but it was boring. Nice, but boring. I like the positioning of the flare in that it creates an intersecting line with the waterfall, without actually touching the waterfall, which is the subject of the photo.

IMHO I don't think flare is helping a bit in this image. It is a natural landscape and the colorful circles are a foreign element in it. Not natural. I can agree with a flare in cityscape as there is a lot of reflecting surfaces, but not there. Also I don't see much of a bokeh here, everything is pretty much inside DoF. I think in situation like this a polarizing filter and a hood would be very helpful and there will be no need for such an extensive post processing, almost repainting of that image.

To address some of your points here;
-I can understand if you think the flare looks unnatural and doesn't suit the image - that is a case of personal taste I think. To me, when I see a sun flare I always think of late evening natural sunlight, which in my mind always goes well with natural images.
-As for 'bokeh', there is actually lots of that visible in this image which is caused by water droplets splashing from the waterfall (this was shot at 28mm on full frame so the waterfall is pretty close) on the front of the lens, which are then rendered as out of focus 8-sided 'circles'.
-This was shot with a polarizing filter and an ND filter. I deliberately didn't use the hood as I wanted the flare to be part of the image.
-The post-processing performed on this image is hardly extensive and certainly nothing close to 'repainting' the image. The only adjustments I made were curves, clarity, saturation, sharpening and crop and resize in lightroom.

 

[timor]

Hi fokker. I understand very much our emotional attachment to our pictures. That's our babies. Don't think I am stranger to braking rules in photography, I do that all the time. I have however trouble with posting my stuff as I shoot film only and I print, but not scan negatives. There is reason for that. My scans from prints sucks, I got to learn that. The only example of my breaking the rules in this forum is in the film discussion forum in the tread "Got frustrated...).
I don't think, that the flare from the droplets on the lenses counts for bokeh. If you would point the wet lens in other then against the Sun direction, the 8-sided "circles" would not happened, you would have soft spots in your image instead. About the flare, I don't know, even looking directly into the Sun I don't see any flare in my eye.Unless I wear dirty glasses. Flare is a product of imperfect optical materials as the light bounces between surfaces of it. You are saying the only adjustments you made were to curves, clarity, saturation and you used sharpening filters, hmm. So, what would you do if instead of computer you would shoot Velvia ?

 

[fokker]

My responses to your statements aren't based on emotional attachment, I just think that you are wrong

The out of focus drops of water are exactly that, out of focus drops. Because of the light hitting them they create specular out of focus highlights, commonly (though not strictly correctly) referred to as bokeh. Regardless of what you want to call it, it is a feature of the photo.

If you can't see any sun flare in this photo perhaps you need to re-examine it.

If I shot this in film it would probably look quite different. I don't shoot film though, I shoot digital. Even if I did shoot film I could employ several relatively simple darkroom techniques to manipulate the final image in a similar manner to my lightroom edit on this photo.

 

[tirediron]

Should have called... I could have given you directions Where did you go in from?

 

[haleypapa]

Absolutely wonderful. What shutter did you use?

 

[timor]

If you can't see any sun flare in this photo perhaps you need to re-examine it.

Which photo are you referring to ?
The droplets on your lens are not out of focus, they became am integral part of the optical system, actually they became an imperfection on the leading surface, a micro lenses and are refracting light as water is a different medium then glass. In your case droplets caught direct Sun and are causing flare, not a bokeh. And that beside the fact, that to get front bokeh of this size you would have to get very long lenses, at least 500mm and focus very far. 28mm lens is not able to produce front bokeh that big, the DoF is too great.
It seems you know a lot of color work in a darkroom, unfortunately Velvia can not be corrected with any simple or complicated darkroom techniques. This is a slide film, exposure is everything, there is no rescue.

 

[fokker]

Absolutely wonderful. What shutter did you use?

This was ISO 100, f/16 shutter 5 seconds. Thanks for the comment.

Should have called... I could have given you directions Where did you go in from?

Haha, if only I'd known! Went in off the highway over the bridge and up from there. Like I said, I later found out I was about 50 metres from the trailhead to the falls, but just never saw it and ended up turning back.

If you can't see any sun flare in this photo perhaps you need to re-examine it.

Which photo are you referring to ?
The droplets on your lens are not out of focus, they became am integral part of the optical system, actually they became an imperfection on the leading surface, a micro lenses and are refracting light as water is a different medium then glass. In your case droplets caught direct Sun and are causing flare, not a bokeh. And that beside the fact, that to get front bokeh of this size you would have to get very long lenses, at least 500mm and focus very far. 28mm lens is not able to produce front bokeh that big, the DoF is too great.
It seems you know a lot of color work in a darkroom, unfortunately Velvia can not be corrected with any simple or complicated darkroom techniques. This is a slide film, exposure is everything, there is no rescue.

I'm referring to the one photo that I posted. One is edited, the other is straight from the camera...

Are you implying that a 28mm lens cannot generate bokeh? Because you're very wrong in thinking that, I have numerous examples of bokeh and/or short DOF from this lens. If the water drops are on the front lens element, say 8 cm from the sensor plane, and I am focusing on the rock about 2 metres away do you really think that the front of the lens is in focus too, even at f/16? Because if you do, again you're wrong.

And like I said, I don't shoot film, I don't really have any interest in shooting film so I'm not really sure why you keep bringing it up. My only point was that the editing done on my final version of this photo is minimal, certainly nothing more than traditional darkroom techniques.

 

[timor]

Are you implying that a 28mm lens cannot generate bokeh? Because you're very wrong in thinking that, I have numerous examples of bokeh and/or short DOF from this lens. If the water drops are on the front lens element, say 8 cm from the sensor plane, and I am focusing on the rock about 2 metres away do you really think that the front of the lens is in focus too, even at f/16? Because if you do, again you're wrong.

And like I said, I don't shoot film, I don't really have any interest in shooting film so I'm not really sure why you keep bringing it up. My only point was that the editing done on my final version of this photo is minimal, certainly nothing more than traditional darkroom techniques.

Keep reading man: posts - whole and then some photography books, it will be good for you. Judging from the original pic you presented you are still very much close to starting point in your learning curve. You may start from here: "Depth of Field and Bokeh" by Zeiss :
http://www.zeiss.com/C12567A8003B8B6F/EmbedTitelIntern/CLN_35_Bokeh_EN/$File/CLN35_Bokeh_en.pdf
I am serious here; it is always better to know, what you speak rather then speak what you know. It is a long journey but good luck, have a fun and come back as better photographer.
Study those long exposures
http://www.flickr.com/people/10633429@N00/