Michael S

How come the last contest awarded is the "Best of 2014"?    It's almost half way though the year already.....

Thanks to everyone who voted for me, much appreciated!

I've taken hundreds of photos of waterfalls over the years and I only use a circular polarizer. It stops down about 1 1/2 stops with the benifit of reducing glare off the water.  Use a small aperture like f/22 and it will work to smooth out the water in most circumstances. You only need about 1/2 to 2 seconds to get the smooth look going. More time gives more smoothness but you can overdue it and just get a white blob with no detail. Another rule of thunb, the more water flow the waterfall has the easier it is to blur.  Small low flow ones look better with longer SS. it fills them out.  When it won't work is when the waterfall is brightly lit by the sun. Try to plan your visit for early or late in the day to avoid the bright sun or go on an overcast rainy day ideally. If the waterfall is in partial sun and shade your best option is to bracket and process it as an HDR.

1/2 seconds - f/16 - iso 200

Wow!! I won first place! 

Thanks to all the voters, some awesome shots in the finals.

Main drawback I see to them is autofocus. I have two Tamarons, 1.4x and the 2.0x. that I purchased from Alden from his ad in this forum, thanks Alden!  Both don't seem to be able to lock focus on any lens I use them with, they just keep hunting so to use them you have to manual focus. Not a huge deal if the subject is pretty stationary but if it's a small quick moving bird it might be very difficult, to be fair there pretty hard subjects even without the teleconverter and auto focus working. Second drawback is they make any lens slower. About 1 stop with the 1.4x and 2 stops with the 2.0x. So either shoot in brght light or crank up the ISO. Image quality on both are good enough for me.

My hometown at night.