Kent Falls, Kent, CT
Kent Falls, was another meetup with the Suffolk Long Island Photographers group. Although I had a great day, I have to admit that for waterfalls aficionado’s the falls is facing a bad direction. At least end of winter/beginning of fall time frame. The falls direction makes it so that 50% of fall is cover in shadow all day long. I have to make another trip end of Summer/Fall time frame to see how much the seasonal change of the angle of the sun has changed that.
There is a ton of places to take photos and for those unable to walk too far, the falls is barely 200 feet from the parking lot. With a long enough lens you don’t even have to get out of the car.
Kent, CT – not to be confused with Kent, NY is a great little town with a lot of character as well. The local chocolate shop had some great mixes that we availed ourselves to as well.
Equipment used: 1Ds Mark II, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, EF 24-105mm f/4L IS, Sigma 14mm f/2.8, 2 * 3Stop ND filters (77mm) to stop the light and get some great flowing water shots at 1-30s (as the sun came up the times went down dramatically).
What is a Neutral Density filters?
- Like Graduated Neutral Density filters are used to reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor.
Why would someone want to reduce the light hitting the sensor?
- By reducing the amount of light hitting the sensor you can increase your shutter speed. This allows you to do relatively long exposures without having to do so very early or very late into the night.
- A by product of long exposure is that by increasing the shutter speed you also get a little bit more of color and contrast into your image. Longer exposure shots will contain more detail in the colors than if you had shot them properly.
An example? The same exact shot within minutes of each other:
- With 6 stops of light (2 – 3 stop ND filters): 30″ exposure @ f/22, ISO 50 — the water turns into a milky liquid, shows motion, turns the image into a dream like state. It’s something different.
- Without any filter: 1/20th @ f/22, ISO 50. freezes just about all of the water, some movement visible although you have to look for it. IMHO, boring!
