Elbow Falls

That's pretty neat how the water is flowing down into a hole or off the side of a rock cliff. I think the exposure looks good. I like the color of the rocks and shroud of fog in the background. Most guys are using the Singh-Ray ND filter, which you can set for eight different stops of nd with one filter. I haven't purchashed one yet but probably will down the road.

Hi Mark, pretty nice shot for me even maybe a little bit soft ? Composition is nice for me as well except that left lower corner - a little bit distracting for me.

Regarding the ND filters you can try to simulate them in software (Lightroom, PS maybe ?) or try to take 2 exposures (usually one for sky and one for darker areas) and blend them using the PS. There is also couple of methods of blending these images.

Anyway probably most of the people ? (as I am) still use the ND filters or use them with that blending combination to better control the exposure. Most useful are probably all of them - or at least hard to say for me as you will use different ones for different shots. The "hard" ones has the "hard" transition so they are quite useful when you have the horizont clearly defined. The soft ones are quite handy in other occasions. As well the density depends on the intensity of the light and you can combine them.
There are also quite special ones as well for example Singh-Ray reverse graduated one which means that you have that "dark" part in the middle what is very handy when you are taking the pictures of the sunset or whatever.

I would recommend some reading about these and you can get quite good idea which ones use when.

Hope it helped at least a little bit.
Here are couple of links:

http://singhray.blogspot.com/2010/03/essential-filters-for-controlling.html
http://singhray.blogspot.com/2009/04/filters-holders-and-vignetting-building.html
http://www.naturephotographers.net/dw0502-1.html

Good comp Mark,

Try not to use this kind of aperture (f/25) because of difraction, it's better to shoot at f/16-f/18 range. On the other hand I see a little bit overexposed so try to reprocess and sharpen more.

It is a pity that you hadn't a GND because you could get the fog texture in the background!!!

Best regards

Wonderful shot, Mark. I love the composition and the shutter speed worked very well. Too bad you had to got to f/25 to accomplish that. That's an aperture where loss of quality definitely kicks in. A ND/GND would have definitely helped here. We lucky Canon shooters also have the advantage of going down to ISO50 to compensate for shutter speed - this is very annoying with Nikon.
About the GND's: I find myself using the as "GND" less often now as the mountains I'm in often don't really work well with the straight transition on the filter. Switching to several exposures proofed to be much more efficient. I suggest you buy a 0.9 Hard GND - but buy a big one like 100x150mm. You can use it as a GND and - what might be useful for you - as a ND as well just by holding the darker part in front of the lens. I do this then and now and the filters are big enough to make this possible. You could add a 0.6 Hard GND to that for more flexibility.

A wonderfully moody day, and you captured the feel quite nicely. As for the Split Grad ND, I use the Singh Ray filters and have been very pleased, although for this image I would prefer to take 2 separate exposures (one of FG & water, and one for sky) and manually blend.

Your composition is really nice in this scene, and the choice of shutter speed spot on. The image does look a little soft, and the f/25 aperture may of contributed to this. I would work with this a little more in PS, add some additional sharpening, and perhaps a touch more contrast.
I use Lee Soft GND's, since rarely do I shoot a scene that has a clear straight transition line. But this same affect (as mentioned above) can be re-produced in PS using 2 images and a gradient mask.

Great shot. Love the atmosphere from the mist in the trees. The plunging waterfall adds some drama to the scene as well.

Thanks all for the comments. I will be working on all of the suggestions over the next while and hopefully I'll have a set of ND filters in the near future to try out in situations such as this.

Mark, Nice image. I like the cold foogy effect. the falls in the FG really adds. Nicely done!