Little Falls with Oneida Falls, Ricketts Glen State Park

Oneida Falls is one of my favorite waterfalls in Rickett's Glen State Park (or anywhere) and it is easy to get nice images prominently featuring it. But, this falls also makes a great background.
 
Wide angle lenses are ideal for making a foreground subject appear large relative to a distant background subject and that is what is going on here. The very small foreground waterfalls are close to the lens and Oneida Falls is in the distant background. The final wide angle result is that they all share a similar size in the frame.
 
Getting the camera in close to a waterfall presents another issue – water splashing onto the lens. When using wide angle lenses and narrow apertures, water drops become very obvious in the image and their results can be very difficult to remove during post processing. As usual for photographing waterfalls, I was using a circular polarizer filter and this is one scenario where a nano-coated CPL filter earns any additional cost required for that feature. The low adhesion properties of the nano coating meant that the water drops were easily removed with a simple squeeze of a Rocket Blower. I simply blew away the water drops before each photo capture and captured enough photos to ensure that I had the shot well-covered.
 
Another reason to take multiple pictures of especially small or medium-sized waterfalls is because the waterflow is typically varying slightly. The change is usually only slight, but slight is enough to change the splashing characteristic of the water and sometimes one frame will be preferred to the others. Especially for perfectionists, the multiple images may create a selection challenge for later. It is always better to have too many good photos than to miss the one you really wanted.
 
The Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM Lens is a superb option for landscape photography. This day was a little late in the season for ideal fall foliage, but I was quite pleased with my take home from this daytrip to RGSP.