Waterfalls and water droplets

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

When photographing a waterfall, you risk getting water droplets on your front lens or filter.
That is not ideal, and it can ruin your photo. Wiping it with a cloth helps, but Photoshop can help too. I explain how in this article.

It can produce beautiful images when you photograph a waterfall with a longer shutter speed.
You choose the desired shutter speed and use the neutral density filter that makes that shutter speed possible. There is one problem you will encounter: droplets.

With longer shutter speeds, there is a high chance of droplets landing on your front lens or filter.
Especially when the wind blows the mist around the waterfall in your direction. That does not make photographing impossible, but it does make it challenging.

There is a solution.
But it does require some work, in two stages. First taking the photos, then editing them. You need patience and perseverance, because not only the filter gets wet, but your camera and you do too.

My tea towel plays a major role in this.
I take a photo with the desired shutter speed, then dry the filter with the tea towel. Then I take another photo and dry the filter again. I repeat this several times, sometimes ten or more.

It is important that the camera does not move between these photos. This gives me a series of photos with droplets visible in each one. However, they are in different places in every photo. By combining these photos, I can easily remove the droplets.
You need photo-editing software that can work with layers. I use Photoshop for this. Open the photos as layers on top of each other and use masks on each photo to remove the droplets by making parts transparent, or not.

This will eventually give you a photo of the waterfall without any droplets visible. Are there droplets that are difficult to remove? The clone brush can help. But there is a good chance you will not need it.

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