Short Hike, Tall Waterfall

I went down to Albany today to pick up my dog (he had been at doggy summer camp with the in-laws for the week).  I decided to find a hiking trail while I was there, and discovered McDowell Creek Park.  Very small, but a pretty waterfall without a bunch of tourists lined up around it.  I like using a tripod and setting the camera up for a long exposure time to get the flowing effect with the water's movement.  It means using the lowest ISO setting my camera has (100), a smaller aperture (F12 or so) and adding on my polarizer (it helps cut the glare and adds a little more dark glass in front of the camera).  If I had a Neutral Density Filter (dark colored glass, just like sunglasses for your camera), I would use that.  Since I don't have to have a few hundred dollars laying around, the polarizer works fine.  I needed the tripod to help hold the camera steady for the longer exposure time, this picture in particular was around 2 seconds for exposure time.

This is the upper portion of the waterfall from the first picture.    There was a nicely stone-worked staircase to get up to it.  I used the HDR (High Dynamic Range) technique of taking a few lighter/darker shots to stick together and filled in the darker area at the base of the image.  Even in summer, Oregon is green!