Hamilton Escarpment

[joebranko]

Hamilton City is known as the City of Waterfalls. According to the city's promotion it has 100 waterfalls, and although I have seen and photographed several I have not attempted to check or photograph them all. Hamilton is located at a section of the Niagara Escarpment, with part of the city above and part below. The waterfalls are the result of streams and creeks and rivers flowing over the Escarpment. The most famous of these falls is Niagara. Although not in Hamilton, and not pictured in this thread, as I had mentioned the Niagara Escarpment.

It is the world's longest escarpment. The Hamilton portion, in many places 100 m (330') tall, is commonly referred to as "the Mountain" by locals. On average the Hamilton Mountain is 4–5 km inland from the Lake Ontario shoreline and at its edge affords views of the city and harbour. (Wikipedia). It is this height difference

Today's photograph is of a view from the escarpment at Spencer's Gorge, over seeing the Town of Dundas, in Hamilton.



In the near proximity to this gorge are two popular water falls: The Tews waterfall and Webster's Falls.
I visited the area 2 days after a heavy rainfall, the result of which can be seen in the water flow, especially over the Webster falls.


Webster's Falls.

In this photo I had problems deciding on the level. In the foreground when I levelled the crest of the waterfall, the bridge in the back ground became skewed. If I levelled the bridge the falls was skewed. I went back and forthlooking for a compromise that would make both look good. Your input would be appreciated.


and Tews Falls.

[Peter Brass]

Joe, whatever Mother Nature dictates. Did you ry this in black & white? Could bring out the water some and the bridge.
Peter

[William W]

. . .
Webster's Falls.
In this photo I had problems deciding on the level. In the foreground when I levelled the crest of the waterfall, the bridge in the back ground became skewed. If I levelled the bridge the falls was skewed. I went back and forthlooking for a compromise that would make both look good. Your input would be appreciated.

I am not sure of the exact meaning of the question. I shall address both of my interpretations:

1. You could not level the shot, at the Scene:

probably two main reasons, the first being that terrain is not level and the foreground and the background display different angles and/or different directions of slope, additionally the lens appears to display some small Barrel Distortion.

Solution:

get ONE Horizontal construction/aspect level and then address the other correction in Post Production - in this case I'd level the Water Fall in the shot and correct the Bridge later - the logic being the Bridge is a much less dominate feature by virtue of the fact it is in the Background and it takes up much less area of the Image Palette.

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2. You took the shot and then later in Post Production you found that you could not get the Bridge and the Waterfall level:

probably one main reason, interrogation reveals that it is very likely that your camera was skewed on both the vertical and horizontal axes relative to the Waterfall and the Bridge, specifically being Tilted Downward and having a Swing to the Left.

That Tilt and Swing of the Camera's Axes combined with an Ultra Wide Angle Lens, will produce the result that you have.

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3. Obviously, the result could be a combination of BOTH the lay of the land AND the camera's axes being skewed relative to the scene.

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Here is the data which corrects these issues in this shot:



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That stated - IF the cause was ONLY point two, then the best practice solution is to methodically address any camera skew to NIL, especially when using an UWA Lens, because the Post Production "fix" is not always simple.

WW

[Manfred M]

Joe - I tend to either use my camera's electronic level or throw a cheap little bubble level I bought on Amazon on my camera. That way I know that I my camera is level when I take the shot. If I get really picky for wide angle work. Sometimes I run into situations where I know my camera was level when I took the shot, but the shot still does not look level. I rotate in post so it looks "right" to me.

I have a 24mm shift - tilt lens that allows me to shift the lens into a position where I can shoot with the camera level. A warning though, a T-S lens is quite expensive, so not for everyone. They don't work with all camera bodies as the adjustment knobs have to clear the parts of the camera that overhang the lens mount.

With your first image, I find that the sky has become a distraction, so cropping it out will give you a composition that might work better. It's a trick I picked up looking at the work of a very well known photographer, Edward Burtynsky, who was born in the area (St Catharines) and now works out of Toronto.

https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/

[Wavelength]

Nice set of images.I felt second and third have some muddy coloration; when i adjusted the contrast etc. the images brightened up and became more lively....

[DanK]

Hmm. Not something I am expert in, but I tried a few things. I cropped off the sky, which didn't add much and provided another horizontal reference. I adjusted tonality a little. Then I used transform-warp in photoshop, bringing up the left corner and a point to its right. You have to be careful not to do it too much, or the trees start looking wonky. It's a crude adjustment, and the bridge is not quite right and the falls are slightly off now, but with more work, this might be OK.

[joebranko]

Thanks John.

[joebranko]

Thanks Bill, I think both the camera skew and foreground and background at different angles contributed. I have not tried to get everything aligned in Photoshop as I primarily use Lightroom. I do have Photoshop and will learn this technique on that application. Thanks for the work you did showing how to do this.

[joebranko]

Thanks for your suggestions Manfred. I rarely ever crop out the sky. This is an eye opener! Perhaps I could also lose some foreground while still maintaining the valley. Thanks.

[Manfred M]

Thanks for your suggestions Manfred. I rarely ever crop out the sky. This is an eye opener! Perhaps I could also lose some foreground while still maintaining the valley. Thanks.

Joe - human physiology (i.e. the way our visual system works) is the key to why this should be done in some images. Our visual system is "keyed" to the brightest or highest contrast areas of a scene. If it is not the main subject of the image, it is likely a distracting element and is often doing more harm than good in the shot.

Removing the sky in your image removes a distraction, in my view.

[joebranko]

Thanks Nandakumar. Good suggestion $