Dealing with a Low Light in Landscape Photography

I was late this day, I had a busy day at my office, but anyway I wanted to go out for taking some fantastic photographs of some little cascades in a gorge which I found some days ago when I was out for a hike without my photography gear.

Struggeling in my comfort zone

Photographing waterfalls and water cascades belong definitely to my comfort zone, but I did hard with finding a composition that worked for me. I took some test shots and looked forward for getting out a really strong photograph. The location was beautiful, the emotions down there were overwhelming, there were amazing lines and patterns - it seemed like paradise for compositions, but I struggled with finding depth for my composition.

Who has turned down the light?

As I spent really long time down in the gorge, tried different angles and I totally forgot the time. Before I took my first photograph I had already to go up really high with my iso.

How high can we go with our ISO?

The iso is not more than the compensating parts of our exposure triangle, beside aperture and shutter speed. Especially when it comes down to waterfall photography, I need to decide for the right aperture and shutter speed to get the right depth of field and to get the right motion blur into the surface of the water- the iso is the only the compensating element for right exposing.

How high we can go depends on the sensor of our camera, our ability to reduce noise in post production and our acceptance for having noise in our photograph. Usually I always try to hold it as low as possible, but I don't shy to go up when it's necessary.

The truth is, that it depends on the personal taste of the photographer and you have to find out by yourself with trying on different iso levels.

Check out my gear, which I use for my landscape photography:

My Landscape Photography Gear

Nice greetings,

Christian