Somersby Falls - Part II

The Main Waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

The Somersby Falls picnic area in the Brisbane Waters national park, on the central coast of New South Wales, is the starting point of a short walk along Mooney Mooney Creek. A number of decent sized waterfalls are within a ten or twenty minute walk from the picnic area. The first, and most impressive, of these is the waterfall pictured above. More images and info after the jump.

A Closeup of the main waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

One of the most interesting compositional elements of the main waterfall, in my opinion, is the branch which extends across the water fall from the left of the frame (shown in the image above). I think it helps convey a sense of depth in the  images of the waterfall.

A section of the lower falls - Somersby Falls, Australia

The drop of the second fall is not as big as the main waterfall but the rocks, moss and leaves make for some interesting compositions. I didn't have any ND filters on this trip and had to rely on an aperture of f22 to get  a suitable shutter speed required to capture the silky feel of flowing water. We got there quite early in the morning and fortunately the sun wasn't too harsh at the time.

The main waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

The wet moss and ferns growing on the rocks along the creek add a lot of colour and interest to the images of the creek. The fact that the area is very rocky allows photographers to capture interesting compositions of small sections of the falls themselves.

A section of the main waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

Somersby Falls is only around an hours drive on the F3 from our place in Sydney. I've been up there on three occasions already and will definitely head up there again. It's probably best to visit in late July or early August as the winter rain would ensure a decent amount of water flowing through the creek.

A section of the main waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

All images on this post were captured using a Canon 7D and the 24-105mm lens. The aperture was set to f22 and the ISO of 100 for all the images on this post.

More images of Somersby Falls

• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2010/08/somersby-falls-part-i.html
• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2009/09/somersby-falls.html

Somersby Falls - Part I

Somersby Falls - Brisbane Waters National Park

I've visited Somersby falls on two previous occasions and spent a fair bit of time photographing the three waterfalls. I went up there again last Sunday with Dean Toh and spent a couple of hours wondering around, photographing the different sections of the falls. The panorama above was one of the highlights of the day.  More info on this shot after the jump.

*The panorama was created using ten images.

In order to create a panorama which is made up of multiple images, a tripod is essential. Ideally the images would be shot in "manual" mode so that each of them are captured with identical settings. When capturing the images it is also important to ensure that there is a substantial overlap between adjacent images. This makes it easier to identify control points between them. These control points are used during the stitching processes.

During post processing I double check all the settings paying particular attention to the colour balance, fill light and blacks. All settings have to be identical across all images to ensure the final panorama is smooth. Stitching the images together is straightforward process and can be completed in any image processing software.

This image has to be viewed large for the details to really stand out. The final image was jpeg file which was over 10MB in size.

The images were captured using a Canon 7D and a Canon 24-105mm lens.

Other Shots of Somersby Falls

• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2009/09/somersby-falls.html
• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2010/08/somersby-falls-part-ii.html

Somersby Falls

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Somersby falls is a situated in the Brisbane waters national park, an hour and a halfs drive north of Sydney.

The falls are easily accessible from a popular picnic area which has parking facilities.  A path and off the picnic area leads you down to the creek.

Photographers can easily spend hours on end photographing the stream and the falls. I followed the creek downstream from the base of the main waterfall and came across two other smaller falls. The image above was a small section of the second one which I focused on.

I loved the way the sun was filtering through the branches overhead and tried to include the spots of light in my composition. I feel the leaves and the light work well in the foreground and give the image another layer of interest. I used a long shutter speed and ND filters to make the water look silky.