Darin McQuoid Photography

Whitewater Photography Tutorial #6: Basic Lighting.

Bad Lighting. Nikon D200, Nikkor 20mm 1.8 @ 1/1000 F7.1 ISO 200.

Once you have the basic hard skills of exposure and focus down, lighting is the next step that will make or break the shot. Understanding light is a few basic rules mixed with experience. The largest mistake people make is to choose their angle for the rapid, not the light.

Shooting for the rapid, heavy shadows, glare and poor color saturation. Nikon D200, Nikkor 18-200 @ 105mm 1/800 F8 ISO 100.

The most basic rule of thumb for whitewater lighting is to shoot with the sun behind you. It's as simple as checking where your shadow is. This reduces glare and if the sun is low enough, lights up the paddlers face. On the west coast this means shooting from behind in the morning and upstream in the afternoon. Vice Versa on the right coast. Of course at mid-day this means that for good lighting you are more or less limited to an overhead shot, which works well for some rapids.

Shooting for the light at mid-day. Nikon D200, Sigma 10-20 @ 20mm 1/1250 F9 ISO 200

An age old photography rule is that the lighting is best at sunrise and sunset. This poses some problems when applied to kayaking, because we can't put on before light and certainly don't want to take off after dark. If you want to shoot a certain angle of a rapid it's well worth your time to note the suns position relative to it at different times in the day. It's still generally the "best light" early or late in the day. Early on I thought that sunny days were best for shooting action, since they allow medium apertures, fast shutters and low ISO speeds. Unfortunately they also limit your ability to shoot the angle you want. I get a little tired of people on the East Coast saying that shooting in California is easy. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it can take years to get a shot, because you have to camp at a certain location to shoot a rapid in the morning on a run that flows once a year....each location has its own challenges.

My personal favorite condition is when a high cloud cover causes the light to naturally "lightbox". Lightboxes are used for studio and product shoots, and disperse the light so it's even from all angles. You will need faster lenses or a camera with good high ISO performance to maximize the light on these days, but you can shoot from the angle of choice with nice even lighting.

Lightbox day! Nikon D200, Nikkor 200mm F4 @ 1/800 F4 ISO 125.

Experience comes into play in understanding what style of photographs to go for under the lighting conditions, and packing the right equipment for the conditions. Two more examples of the same exact waterfall. Same time of day on different days only a few weeks apart, the angle and lighting make all the difference. .

Nikon D200, Nikkor 50mm 1.8 @ 1/1000 F8 ISO 100

Putting in some hiking effort often pays off. Nikon D200, Nikon 75-150mm "E" @ 1/1000 F5.6 ISO 100

As a beginning photographer I hated mixed light days. They make it tough for the camera to meter, and I just assumed all sunlight was the ideal lighting conditions. Then I had a motivational poster, an old Pyranha ad shot by Charlie Munsey on Rodgers Creek. Mixed lighting left the bottom of the falls in the shade, giving the feeling that Charlie Beavers was dropping into the unknown. I have the lowest ratio of keepers in mixed lighting, but the ones worth saving make the effort worthwhile. In short, just because the lighting may seem bad, don't write it off.

Nikon D200, Nikkor 18-200 @ 18mm 1/640 F6.3 ISO 400.