Photographing Hopetoun Falls
About Hopetoun Falls
About the falls
Hopetoun Falls is one of the most photographed falls in Victoria. The falls are located near the little town of Beech Forest in the Otways. They are nearby to Triplet Falls and Beauchamp Falls .
Viewpoints
One of the great things about these falls are how many compositions are possible.
From just near the car park you can shoot through the trees to the falls. This is basically the only way to shoot the falls where you are not shooting from the bottom of the falls.
From the viewing platform, you get a great shot upstream with the falls on your right hand side.
While you should not leave the path and platform, some people have clearly done this and photographed the falls from the flats just near the falls.
How I photographed the falls
What I took - what was in my kit
I took my LowePro Backpack loaded with Linhof Technorama with Velvia 50 film for the panorama, and Canon 5DSR body, Canon 24 mm TS, Canon 16-35mm and 50mm Sigma Art Lenses, Manfrotto 190 Tripod, and of course a range of lens wipes, spare batteries, sunscreen and bug repellant.
Techniques
As the falls are fairly high, the lower part of the falls is always poorly lit, while the upper part can be in bright sunshine. This leads to an exposure / composition issue: if you include the sky, then the dynamic range is probably too high and a HDR technique is probably needed. If you excluse the sky, then the composition is limited.
As with any falls, the water looks better (to me at least) with some movement in it, so a slow shutter speed helps to create this. The slow shutter speed in turn implies using a good tripod.
How to get there
Location: 8HJ9+M4 Beech Forest Vic ///operatives.hangdog.hedged (-38.668232 143.567939)
The only way to get to the falls is via a car, from Melbourne, Geelong, or the Great Ocean Road towns of Lorne or Apollo Bay. There is no public transport to the falls. The falls are about 3 hours west of Melbourne along the Princes Highway. Past Gelong, continue to Colac where you turn left to Lavers Hill (Lavers Hill Road). At Ferguson, you turn left onto Beech Forest Road through Beech Forest village and shortly after turn right onto Binns Road. The Hopetoun Falls Rd is on your right and leads to the car park.
Not shown, but just in the top right of the map above is Beauchamp Falls, and just over the left are Triplet Falls. They are only a few kilometres away.
The Hopetoun Falls car park is just at the top of the falls. If you park your car here, the falls are just behind you on the left, and the path to the falls is just to the left. The path consists initially of about 30 Metres of stairs, followed by about 500 M of flat walk along a wide path to the viewing platform. The platform is just above the water and about 40M downsteam from the actual waterfall.
Best time to visit
As with any waterfall, there is more water over the falls during winter, and following good rains. Reasonable rains also mean that the bush is greener. However, the falls do not change much throughout the year and summer is the most popular time to visit the coast, and most people also visit the falls in summer. That can make for crowds (from a photographer's perspective) during summer holidays and weekends. As the falls are in a small valley, the time of day doesnt matter much. I have not seen a composition that has included sunset or sunrise.
Accessability
Apart from the limited view just off the car park, the falls are accessed by about 30 m of stone steps, followed by a flat, open path. The steps have a hand rail where needed, and the steps are fairly wide.
Where stay
The Beech Forest pub is a nice place to eat and have a beer after visiting the falls, but I dont think they have accomodation. Colac has a range of reasonable nice hotels. Apollo Bay is another 40mins south of the falls and is my pick of where to stay. It has a range of hotels and a caravan park. It also has good resturants, golf course, etc. If you are going to camp or use a caravan, then Beauchamp Falls has a lovely camp site at the car park to the falls. This site is 'free camping' - meaning first in best dressed and no bookings. It would fit 10-15 camp sites and I have never seen more than 5 tents there. It has picnic table and toilets (Longdrop). This is also a great spot for a picnic after or before visiting the falls.
