“Soft Water” Shots

[mark s]

I messed around yesterday with some soft/moving water shots on a local stream, mainly because everything was close to frozen and the fishing was lousy.

[john michael white]

Mark,

There are many photographers here on IA that can give you better advice than me, but here are my thoughts for what they’re worth:

#1 – I like the composition a lot.  The water blur looks nice.  The foreground looks good on the exposure, but I think the background looks a tad overexposed.  You might want to try using a neutral density filter with the polarizer, or in this situation maybe a graduated neutral density filter, to help get proper exposure for both foreground and background.

#4 – I like this one as well.  I really like the more extensive water blur of the longer exposure on this image.  There is not as much contrast between background and foreground in this image, but possibly ND filter might help to allow slower shutter speed for more light and richer colors in the exposure.  Nice composition here too.  I like this one the best as far as what you have achieved with the water blur.

#3 – To me, this image is too warm (but you may not have been concerned with that, only the water blur :)), maybe check your white ballance setting.  I think a hair longer exposure like in #4 would make the water look even better.

#2 – Similar situation to #1 with background. I personaly think the water blur looks better in #1 where your exposure was a little longer.

P.S. As noted by others, composition is in the eye of the beholder to a large extent.

[John Bennett]

Wont comment on composition etc, I think thats something people develop their own taste for.

With regards to shutter speeds, you have the right idea. Only thing to watch for is blown highlights. I think thats largely unavoidable to some degree with water, but try not to over do it. A case where some is ok, alot you might want to increase your ss.

Metering.
Try metering off an area that presents alot of brightish green and start at -2/3s. Then recompose to include the water. Basically your metering and setting values to expose for the Greens present…not the water. Then adjust as neccessary.

[john michael white]

I’m really glad you mentioned the -2/3 metering John B. Excellent point.  

I read early on when I got my Canon 10D, at Ken rockwell’s site, that many Canon cameras need to have Exposure Compensation set to -2/3 when shooting in daylight.  I made that setting on my camera, and it really improved the images.

[John Bennett]

Some cameras do (or did) have a tendency to over/under expose a bit. I think those days are gone…not sure…

With regards to streams/waterfalls etc
If you meter the water *for* the water, which is highly reflective the camera is going suggest a fairly fast shutter speed. You want to slow that down in order to create the cotton candy look.<<
ok, great….if thats all you have in the frame.

Thats usually not the case.
What about the foliage?

A longer exposure is going to blow your greens as well, so instead of a lush forest surounding the stream or moss on the rocks you end up with washed out Greens.

So basically it becomes a question of exposing for the water, or exposing for the “scene”.  If you take a meter reading from some greens that are in light (as opposed to in shade) and then adjust by -2/3s as a place to start from, you’ll have an exposure value that should be pretty darn close to a picture that renders the entire scene nicely and has protected the lighter toned greens present.

Then its just a question of whether or not you like the amount of  motion blur that results in the water and adjust from there.

Bascially changing the priority from capturing good cotton candy as the driving force to exposing for a scene that contains moving water.

[Zach Matthews]

This isn’t as hard as it first appears.

[mark s]

Thanks guys for the tips and advice – you’re right, I really wasn’t concerned with composition that much with these shots.

[Zach Matthews]

Mark –

Next time try it again when almost all the available light is out of the sky.

[mark s]

Will do – I’ve been shocked as well with some night shots that I’ve taken in the past.

Thanks.

[Carter Simcoe]

Mark- As you start to mess with this (especially if you want to make some prints) realize that as you get into those high f-stops the image quality is going to degrade.  I’d guess the sweet spot on that lens at the wide end is going to be about f/8; I’d probably keep it there maybe going down as far as f/16 if there was something much closer in the foreground I wanted to include as well.  

I’d probably start by coming back when there’s less light in the sky but if you can’t wait there’s two things you can do to get the shutter speeds you need w/ out stopping the lens down so much.  There’s neutral density filters, and like Zach says your polarizer functions as roughly a two stop ND filter along w/ cutting glare.   Also you can take multiple exposures and layer them in photoshop; kind of like HDR except you don’t bracket the exposures.

[mark s]

Also a good point, thanks Carter

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