Lady Bowen Falls | Capturing Milford Sounds Tallest Waterfall

My earliest memory of a nature photograph is of a waterfall at Milford Sound called Lady Bowen Falls. It hung on the wall of my father’s home office. I had never witnessed anything like it before. Strong winds in the fiord were blowing the falling water up the cliff face. I don’t believe I had ever seen the raw power of nature photographed that way before and that’s why it stayed with me. Little did I know that when I’d finally make it to Milford Sound it would exceed my already high expectations.

After a long drive from Queenstown we arrived at Milford Sound. It was pouring with rain and snowing which had resulted in thousands of epic waterfalls. Just when I thought the scenery couldn’t get any better Lady Bowen Falls came into view. I find it hard to describe how I felt at that moment, it was almost to much beauty for me to handle. After James and I checked into our accommodation I couldn’t wait to get to work…if you can call it that.

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Day 1: Failed To Photograph Lady Bowen Falls

Once we got to the car park I noticed the tide was out. The walk to the water’s edge wasn’t too far, but considering the weather conditions we had to be prepared. I put a Tokina 24-70mm f2.8 lens onto my new Nikon D810. I then placed a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens in a plastic bag just in case I needed it. Honestly I don’t know what I was thinking. There was no way I was going to be able to easily change the lens in that weather. I did manage to do it by putting the camera into a garbage bag, but I shouldn’t have. I put all of the gear at risk for a great shot.

Shortly after we were soaking wet, the tripod was utterly useless in the wind and James had broken the hotel’s umbrella. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse I got hit in the eye by a hail stone. The situation was becoming quite laughable by this stage.

I was lucky enough to walk away with a couple of good images, unfortunately none of them were of Lady Bowen Falls. This was new territory for me as a photographer and I it was all going to be trial and error from here on in.

Day 2: Capturing Lady Bowen Falls In Low Light, Pouring Rain, & Handheld From A Boat

I woke up the next morning focused and determined to do the best I could regardless of the weather. It wasn’t like I had a week to get a great shot, this was my moment. James and I chosen to go on a Milford Sound cruise. My mother had given me a heads up that going on a small boat is best and she was right. Going with Mitre Peak Cruises was a great idea, we avoided having to travel with a lot of people and we got up close to the waterfalls and wildlife.

So we were off to the best start we could have had on that particular day. It was now up to me to apply the knowledge I had gained as a photographer and try to do the place justice.

I captured all of the Lady Bowen Falls images using the Tokina 24-70mm f2.8 lens. The quality of this lens. The images it produces are extremely sharp and paired with the Nikon D810 the amount of noise is very low.

Not only did I have to try and compose the images very quickly, I also had to make sure my camera settings were spot on.

To keep the noise level to a minimum I went as low as I could with the ISO settings and operated between ISO 200 and ISO 320. Everything had to be in focus, therefore I kept the aperture between f/10 and f/13.

The most important setting of all was my shutter speed. This would affect the exposure and sharpness of the photos. All images in this blog post were shot at 1/250 of a second, except for one, which was shot at 1/160 of a second. The only reason I shot the waterfall at such a low shutter speed for this one shot was to smooth out the water a little. I was lucky that the image still came out sharp enough for me to include it in my collection.

Another thing that worked for me that morning was to anticipate where the best spot on the boat was going to be as we approached. Then I tried to stabilise myself as much as possible and keep my elbows tucked in tight by my sides.

It wasn’t just waterfalls photos that I managed to capture that morning. There were also a lot of amazing opportunities for wildlife photography. I am happy to say that I left my Milford Sound cruise with a boat load (pun intended) of great images. The one thing I did not expect was to walk away having learned that I am capable of much more as a photographer than I thought possible.

All of the images were edited using Adobe Lightroom.