Plitvice Lakes National Park - The Photography Perspective
This was my first time visiting Plitvice Lakes National Park (hope not the last time) and i want to share some of the things i learned in 7 hours of taking photos there. In no particular order, mostly my thoughts while i was editing photos:
- Don't rely on the lens/camera stabilization
- If you want long exposure for waterfalls feel free to take your tripod
- Take your 24-105mm lens or an equivalent
- Take a polarizer filter
- Rainy day is fine, maybe even better
- Go early
Don't rely on the lens/camera stabilization
This is the first Tip because it was the first thing i noticed after importing photos in Lightroom and looking at them on 4k monitor. Weather forecast said heavy rain in the morning, so i had a choice of taking the umbrella or the tripod. I picked the umbrella and hoped i would be able to get some lower shutter speeds with Lens/Camera stabilization.
New cameras and lenses do a great job with stabilization, but they are not miracle makers.
If you don't have a Tripod or you can't take it with you there are few things you can try. One of them is putting your camera on the ground, walls, paths, your bag. But to be honest, not a great option in most parts of Plitvice Lakes.
Other option is Burst Shots. Set the Burst mode/Continuous Shooting and take 5-6 shots. When you press the shutter button, there is a small movement, the same as you release it. There is a chance that few shots in the middle will not be blurry. The example above is taken at 1/10 of a second.
To be honest, when you edit it, scale it for social media, 99% of people will not notice it. You probably didn't notice it on the first photo. But it will irritate you personally 😄 Especially if you don't notice it while you are there taking photos. And i had a feeling the shots should be even slower, so
If you want long exposure for waterfalls feel free to take a tripod
It is perfectly fine to photograph with a tripod at Plitvice Lakes. I seen several people doing it. There are some rules and license for professional crews filming and photographing, but for you as a random photographer it is fine.
Tripod will give you the option for beautiful smooth look of waterfalls. Longer exposures would also make walking people disappear 😁
If you go on a cloudy day and early, you will be able to get several seconds of exposure even without an ND Filter. I think i was never on ISO 100 through the whole day. And most of the times here you will not want to be at f/2.0.
Bear in mind that most of the trails are narrow and there are other people there and you don't want to be that guy with a tripod blocking everyone.
A lot of the paths are made of wood, so they vibrate while walking on them. Not only you would be that photographer, but you would also get blurry shots because of people going around you.
Go early.
Take your 24-105mm lens or an equivalent
I have a curse of only owning prime lenses. Prime lenses are great, usually cheaper (why i was buying them), most of the time have more quality glass and wider aperture. But they are not so great for photo walks when it is raining, or overall on photo walks. It is a hassle to change lenses all the time. I started with 35mm and change it to 85mm while on the boat. And stayed on 85mm till the end.
24-105mm or an equivalent f/4 lens will be all that you need most of the time. There will maybe be few situations where you would like to go wider or maybe where you would like to zoom in to 200 or 300mm. But 24-105 will cover most of the shots.
Take a Polarizing filter
Polarizing filter cuts out the glare, reflections and makes colors more vibrant. It is pretty self explanatory why would you want one. If you don't know what it does, just imagine it as a sunglasses for your lens. I would assume all serious nature/landscape photographers have one. I am not one of those serious ones, so i don't own one 😢 Therefore no examples.
So if you have one, don't forget to take it. It will help a lot.
Rainy day is fine, maybe even better
I just learned that Plitvice Lakes have 140-150 rainy days in a year. On the day i was there weather forecast said heavy rain in the morning with light showers through the day. I was not even sure should i go, but that was the only day i was there and able to. In the end the heaviest rain was while i was on a boat.
Rain will not stop you from enjoying Plitvice Lakes. Just take an umbrella or a raincoat and go for it. There will be less people, if it was raining for several days waterfalls will look better, wooden trails look nice. Trails are not that slippery so decent shoes will be fine. I had not so great sneakers and there was just a short trail with dirt and rocks where you need to pay a bit of attention to not slip.
And people tend to wear colorful raincoats or umbrellas that could add to your photos.
Go early in the morning
Plitvice lakes are pretty popular tourist destination. So to make it not overcrowded they sell 500 tickets per hour. So if you buy a ticket for 7AM you can enter till 8AM (they tolerate if you are a hour late). But if you look at the Availability time schedule you will see that most of the crowds arrive after 10AM.
I got there around 7:30AM and you can see that there was almost no one there. At this first viewpoint there was me and another photographer with a tripod. Around 1PM this viewpoint was full of people. And a lot of group tours. They are probably what you want to avoid and they don't come early.
Most of the times on my walk i had to wait if i wanted to get people in the shot.
So the conclusion is visit Plitvice Lakes National Park early in the morning on a rainy day.
If you missed any of the previous post you can click on the image and check that out:
 |  |  |
|---|
 |  |  |
|---|
 |  |
|---|
Photography Basics: Learn Manual Mode (tutorial, Part 1)
Photography Basics: Learn Manual Mode, Shutter speed (tutorial, Part 2)
Photography Basics: Learn Manual Mode, Aperture and ISO (tutorial, Part 3)
Photography Basics: Learn Manual Mode - Thinking process (Tutorial Part 4)