Photographing Taggerty Cascades

About Taggerty Cascades

About the cascades

Taggerty Cascades are within the Yarra Ranges National Park on the Beeches Walking Track, about 120km East of Melbourne, just to the east of Marysville. The same area contains Phantom Falls, Cora Lynn Falls, Keppel Falls and Lake Mountain, so it makes for a nice days outing from Melbourne. The cascades are not much of a cascade, but they usually have water flowing over them and they are in a lovely setting. A small wooden pedestrain bridge goes over the falls and it makes a nice focal point for a photograph.

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.

Techniques used

Kit used

How to get there

Location: GR6R+5J Marysville, Victoria ///spreads.clearly.reassign (-37.489790 145.841079)

From Melbourne take the M3 / Eastlink to Ringwood, then via the Ringwood bypass take the Maroondah Highway (B360) through Healesville. After 41km, turn right onto the C512 to Marysville. At the roundabout in Marysville continue on the C512 Woods Point Rd for 500m before turning left onto Red Hill Road and immediately right onto Lady Talbot Drive. Continue on this road for 12km before turning right onto The Beeches Walking Track.

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 to stay

One obvious place is Melbourne, but this is far enough away that a 2 hour trip is needed to the area. A better place to stay is Marysville. This was one of the key holiday locations for Melbourne for many years, and their is still a large range of hotels, cottages, villas, Bed and Breakfast locations and a Big4 Holiday (Caravan) Park. There is also the Lake Mountain Ski Resort a little to the east. Camping is available at several nearby sites including Steavensons Falls.