The Niagara Falls is a 6-hour drive from Montreal. It was the middle of summer and for the entire drive, the weather was awful. The rain started at least 10 times. When I was approaching Niagra Falls it became even worse; it was pouring hard and the low dark clouds made me feel if it was twilight time already.
I completely gave up on the idea of taking any photos that afternoon and I decided to stay in my hotel room and concentrate on some blog writing instead. And then, in a matter of minutes, the rain stopped and the sun started to blast through the openings.
I knew it was the perfect opportunity. I grabbed my gear and ran to the falls. That was the day when I took my best photos of Niagara Falls.
Loc: 43.09094, -79.06899
Shooting & Processing
I took 3 bracketed shots on a tripod (-1, 0, +1). I could see that the light was not too dynamic because the setting sun was covered with the clouds, but I took 3 brackets anyway, just in case.
I used single RAW image editing in Lightroom. I described the process in Introduction to Lightroom Rapid Editing System.
First I applied Lightroom preset Point Lobos from my Landscape Collection and later I used ToolKit to adjust exposure mostly because the photo was a bit underexposed.
The Lightroom Preset Editing Formula: Point Lobos (1, 9, 21, 24, 30, 40)
Also, I added the Graduated Filter to emphasize the sunset colors in the sky (right side).
Deconstructing Featured Photo
- Camera: Canon 60D
- Lens: Sigma 10-20mm
- Focal Length: 10mm
- ISO: 100
- Aperture: F6.3
- Shutter: 1/320
- Bracketing: 3 shots (-1, 0, +1 )
- Tripod: FEISOL Tournament CT-3442
- Ballhead: FEISOL CB-40D
Processing:
Lightroom: import, tagging, preset based processing (Point Lobos preset from Landscape Collection)
Photoshop: color correction, contrast, cleaning. I used the Stamp Tool to cover distracting element in the bottom right corner.
Photoshop Plugins:
- Topaz DeNoise was used to reduce digital noise (sky, water).
- Topaz Clarity was used to enhance details and boost colors (land, falls).
