Phun Phriday! #11 - Silky Waters

Happy Phun Phriday! to you. It's time to step outside the box and have some Phun with your Photography.

If I were to try to give one type of nature photograph that is probably my favorite, after thinking long and hard I would probably say water and more specifically moving water. For some reason moving water captured in a still photo is fascinating and beautiful to me.

I am happy to say that among the people who visit my blog and comment and email me are very advanced, experienced photographers along with people who are just trying to learn the craft as well as the gamut in between. I hope the advance and experienced will bear with me today while I give a brief tutorial on photographing moving water.

Very simply put, if you want falling/moving water to give a silky look all you have to do is leave the shutter open a little longer. Every situation will be different and so the amount of time will change. Here are three examples of the exact same stream, but with the shutter left open for different amounts of time.  Note that you may want to click directly on each photo to see them in a larger size to get better detail.

This first shot was taken for 1/25th of a second.  As you can see it almost stops the water.  With a little practice, or if you are properly supported you can do something like this hand held (without tripod).

Number two of the stream was taken at 1/3d of a second.  You can see that there is quite a significant difference in the look of the flowing water.  It is very difficult to hold the camera still for that length unless you are leaning against something very solid and steady, so I would strongly recommend a tripod for this shot.

 Now take a close look at this one and see how far out the "silkiness" extends.  Look at the surface of the water even several feet away from the falls.  There is really a significant difference.  The lens was open for 13 seconds for this shot. 

Which is best?  Of course that totally depends.  We'll each have our favorite of the three depending on our mood or the mood we want to convey.

Another point I want to make is that moving water is moving water.  In other words, it does not have to be a flowing stream to give you a very interesting photo.  Sometimes just the wind will make enough movement to give you a very artistic effect, such as this one.

At first glance this may look like snow.  This is a photo on the Great Salt Lake during a fairly stiff breeze so that even though it is not flowing it is still very active.  This was exposed for 25 seconds and as a matter of fact it was so dark at the time that I had to estimate my focus because I couldn't see anything through the viewfinder to focus on. 

Exposure is based on the amount of light which hits your sensor.  It involves three variables:  First, how much ambient light is on the subject - somewhat controllable. Second, how much light is getting through your lens - significantly controllable.  and Third, how long your shutter is open - again significantly controllable. 

As far as the ambient light you can fairly easily control it on small items by adding light or shading light.  Much harder on large items.  In the case of the lake I just waited until the sun had gone down but sometimes you don't have that luxury. 

In the case of the type of photography we're talking about today, we want to be able to leave the shutter open for a period of time, whether it is 1/4 of a second or many seconds.  In that case we may need to reduce the amount of light coming through the lens.  We can do that by closing down the aperture or using a higher f stop, but even that often doesn't do enough.  In that case you may have to add filters.  I've found that a properly adjusted polarizing filter will cut one f stop, but I never leave home without my neutral density (ND) filter.  You can get ND filters at various densities that will give you up to about 3 full stops.  There are some photographers that use multiple ND filters.  Add that to the one stop of the polarizing filter - also with me at all times - and you've made a very big difference.  On the last of the stream shots above I had to have my lens closed down to f. 20 and have both filters on to get the 13 second exposure.  It was just lucky that I was also in a heavily shaded area. 

OBTW, There is one more thing you can do and that is set your ISO to as low as possible.  On my camera, however, that is only 100.  Some camera's may let you go as low as 50. 

Please let me know if  these basic tutorials are interesting and helpful to you. Also is it too basic, or not basic enough and is there too much or too little information and/or examples.

Have you done something interesting or new and pushed the edge or stepped out of your own box.  If so, leave a comment with a link and share it. 

Don't be shy - leave a comment or email me.  I look forward to hearing from you!

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