Waterfall Photography Help

I live in a great waterfall photography location (western NC) and have had good success in my short career shooting them to date.. I've posted a few on here. I'm going to go ahead and apologize in advance for the length...

Anyways, I went out this morning to shoot a new location I discovered... here are a few details...
- Shot from 7:15 am to 9:00
- Sky was bright but overcast(ish), I hope you can visualize what I mean
- Deep in a gorge, atleast 100 feet on each side
- Light foliage around and 50/50 canopy
- Using a polarizing filter at maximum effect
- Shooting with a 350D with 28-135 USM IS, tripod, and remote release

Onto my problem, I COMPLETELY blew out the water in almost every shot despite metering (using one focus point and putting it on the water) off of it and bracketing(?) doing 2-3 exposures of every shot at -1/3 and -2/3 usually, all the water is blown out.

EDIT: Here's an untouched, problematic photo:

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please do post an example. are you doing long exposures to show water movement and get the smoot effect, or are the water fall like a sports shot?

metering off the water isn't the best idea, I'd switch to a wider metering area.

Thanks for the comment, corey. The more I think about it, the more I think my metering may be the problem...

Also, I posted one of the problematic ones that, as you can tell, is underexposed and the water doesn't look too bad. But if I hit with any kind of levels to correct the exposure, it gets blown out in a hurry...

- Scott

Expose for the hightlights and pray for the shadows was a quote I once read.

I know what you mean about the banks and gullys. What I would do is take several exposures, tripod, shutter relases and AEB. You will have to merge in photoshop, its a bit of work but the results will come out well.

Yeah, I've thought of that, but have to admit to being atleast somewhat intimidated by it... I think I may try it tomorrow, I REALLY want these shots.

Thanks for the comment.

- Scott

Hope you dont mind a quick play. original + copy that I adjusted the shadows. laid one image across the other and painted through without touching the waterall.

In these type of areas you cant get it in one shot. I have to go back and redo mine as well. Any excuse to take a day off work

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in a shot like that the water will turn white, thats perfectly normal and acceptable.

a few little things, because it was shot inthe shade, it has a faily cool color temp to it, so a slight warming filter in PS or levels adjustment could bring that up. The whole photo itself is a little under exposed, so again a slight levels adjustment could fix that

I'm curious what an HDR image from there would look like

Yep, that's my main issue... the water isn't too bad now, but the moment I touch it with any levels to correct the exposure the water blows out.

Now, I'm wondering what an HDR image would look like too... I may have to do some reading.

Thanks everyone.

- Scott

I shoot waterfalls all the time, and I generally don't worry too much about the highlights on the water - I expect to lose detail there, especially with a slow shutter speed.

You can achieve more control in adjusting your exposure if you use curves instead of levels. You might try that.

Mark