DSLR Photography Forum

After a brief discussion regarding the use of slow shutter speeds to photograph water recently, I went for a bit of a browse through some of my own photos to see the effect that various shutter speeds has on water.
I found a series of photos I took about two months ago of a lake near my house (Yanjebup lake) where I had experimented with this, and because all the shots were taken under the same lighting conditions, same water and wind conditions and using the same lens, I thought they were worth sharing to illustrate the effect.

(all shots taken on a Canon 350D with an EF 50mm f/1.8 prime lens at 100 ISO on a tripod with a remote shutter release. All photos taken as "RAW" files and have had their exposure settings, white balance and other RAW parameters manually tweaked on the PC).



Shots "A" and "B" pretty much show what the water looked like to the naked eye. It was fairly calm, but there were still definate ripples. You can see a slight softening of the water in the 1/15 second shot (B), but this is probably more due to the very shallow depth of field (f/1.8 aperture) and close focal point than the slightly slower shutter speed.



By closing up the aperture (INCREASING the f-number from 1.8 to 22), this allows you to use much longer shutter speeds to get the same exposure (it also has the effect of increasing depth of field). By slowing the shutter speed down to 1.6 or 2 seconds (shots C and D respectively), you can see a dramatic difference in the water compared to shots A and B. Most of the ripples have been softened out to a large extent and you are left with a lovely velvety look which often appears to have a slight layer of mist above it. While this looks much calmer than shots A and B, some movement is still evident in the water in C and D.



Finally, by adding a polarising filter and/or neutral-density filter, it is possible to achieve even slower shutter speeds without over-exposing the image. Shot E shown here is a 10 second shot where I used a polarising filter which blocks out about 2 stops of light (quadrupling the required shutter speed from about 2.5 seconds to 10 seconds).
You can see that using a 10 second shutter speed removes almost all detail from the water and makes it appear almost completely flat.

These photos will hopefully provide some kind of guide when shooting water, or maybe give some incentive to experiment. You can choose how much detail you want to keep in the water and then choose an appropriate shutter speed to suit... and then try to adjust your camera to suit this shutter speed.
Obviously there are numerous other considerations when setting up for a shot which may not allow you to use the desired shutter speed, but everything in photography involves trading one thing for another and finding the best compromise.
Also keep in mind that not all water will behave in the same way it does in these shots. The water you are shooting might be moving faster or slower, it might be surf, chop, river currents or a waterfall. You will need to experiement as I have here, but I'm sure you'll agree that the results have a dramatic impact on the photograph that results.

Thanks a lot for your comment Adrian. Because of the limitations of my camera, it has been very difficult to get something nice with watter.. However, I am keen on give it another try to see what is the best I can get.

This is an outstanding post, Kombi. Many people, especially newbies to photography, wonder how to get those dreamy atmospheric water shots, and you've explained it all perfectly. : subtle hint : Jules should make this a front-page article.: /subtle hint :

Excellent!

Thanks Kombi for taking the time to put this together. This is just the kind of info I need. You have done a great job of making it easy to understand!

I spend a lot of my spare time on and around water so I am sure to put it into practice.

Cheers Russ

Irma Wrote:Thanks a lot for your comment Adrian. Because of the limitations of my camera, it has been very difficult to get something nice with watter.. However, I am keen on give it another try to see what is the best I can get.

Happy to help Irma.

I'm not sure about the settings on your particular camera, but your post did remind me of a somewhat odd characteristic that some digital cameras seem to have (including my old Olympus C750 and my neighbour's Fuji s5500 I think??).

That is that the camera will limit its slowest shutter speed in all modes except fully manual mode. Even when in aperture priority or shutter priority in my neighbour's camera, he was unable to get shutter speeds slower than about 3 seconds if I recall correctly.
It was only when in fully Manual mode that we could leave the shutter open for its maximum amount of time (16 seconds on my Olympus or 15 seconds on the Fuji I think). I seem to remember my Olympus behaved slightly differently, but it was still limited.
I guess the manufacturers do this in an attempt to "idiot-proof" the camera (if somebody accidently took a 15-second shot without realising it, they might think the camera had locked up or crashed perhaps???), but the downside is that it makes it more difficult to access these speeds.

I'm not saying this is the case with your camera, but your post reminded me to post this info.

Cheers
Adrian

My camera has f/2.8 - f/8 and 1/1300 - 8 sec. in manual. I know it because the other day I was taking pictures with slow shutter speed, it was with light, as the ones you took the other day with the rose.... I am interested because when I went to Munich I tried with a little brook I found, and I couldn't get anything nice....

Your post reminded me something that happen just few weeks ago. We were in a photo course... and the teacher was showing us the effects of the slow shutter speed in water. It was a fountain, he was making comparition with a bad picture and a good picture, when he showed us " the good picture", I said, but that is wrong as well, isn't it? Teacher turned to see me, a little bit serios and I said, Well, it is because I can see a problem with that picture.... What problem?!?! he said... That the man near the fountain looks like a ghost... The picture looks bad... God! You should have seen what he said... Thanks good he said it in German so I understood nothing At the end of the class G told me you just forgot where you were, you thought you were in the Critique fourm in Shuttertalk Yes, I forgot

Hey very nice work Kombi! I found the results quite interesting indeed - it had never crossed my mind to use the technique on a lake. Over waterfalls and rivers, yes, but not a lake.

But it's absolutely amazing - the difference between E and B...

Excellent discussion. One thing: most of these excellent examples are with still water.

Another trick I would like to add is my favorite speed for taking pictures of rapidly moving water such as waterfalls.

1/8 second gives a waterfall a lovely veiled look. It is one of my favorite tricks for water.

Here is an example - not the best one - but all that I can access from work:

http://www.pbase.com/willdabeest/image/33189682

Thanks Kombi!
Can't wait to try it