gauzy effect on sea water...super long exposure?

[Voyager]

I am trying to understand how black and white seashore photographs that depict the water as an almost monotone, smooth, gauzy surface, with subject features (a dock for instance) appearing to protrude from the mist-like surface are made. I don't mean the flowing waterfall at 1/2 second or so...it seems more than that, the clouds even show tracking. I think I read somewhere that one photographer uses exposures that are minutes long. So I've dialed my light meter to ISO 25 (1/2 of a readily available 35mm film), set the EV indicator to 10 (figuring an early, gray day), set the aperture ring to f22 (my smallest), and checked the longest exposure suggested with that combination...2 seconds, but intuitively that seems too short (especially after reading the minutes thing). I'm waiting for the ISO 50 film to arrive, and I'll probably add a polarizer which should stretch the exposure to 8-15 seconds....but minutes? Did I read it wrong...am I on the wrong track altogether...or will 15 seconds or less do the trick?

 

[MikeK]

You might want to consider adding a neutral density filter to the lens. They come in various strengths. That will help cut the light down so you can get longer exposures. Beyond 2 seconds you will need to add time due to reciprocity failure.

Mike

 

[wirehead]

Wait until sundown. When there's just a smidgen of light in the sky left, you should be able to take a nice several-minute exposure at a reasonable aperture and a long time.

Oh, and the reciprocity failure depends on the film. Some films are good out to several minutes without reciprocity adjustment.

 

[DrPablo]

I find 10-20 seconds to be enough to eliminate all but vague surface features from the ocean. And 30 seconds to 2 minutes turns it into featureless nothingness. For fast moving water, even just 5-10 seconds can be enough.

 

[Jon Shiu]

Hi, a calculated time of 15 seconds before taking into effect reciprocity failure might lead to a 60 second or longer exposure. Plus if you are a stop off it usually is not that big a deal, depending on what effect you are after. It also depends on the waves and type of light and direction of the light and the distance away your are. I have some pictures in my gallery with several minute exposures, but I don't think any of them quite like the effect you are after.

Jon

 

[Voyager]

Hello All...from your comments (thank you), it appears that 15 seconds or so might just do it, though I will try to stretch it some to see where it goes. And I'll let reciprocity fall where it may (will use Ilford Pan F 50).

Jon, your Navarro 2004, December 2005, and the Rock Garden are very close to the effect I'm considering (and those are some wonderful photographs, I must say). Also, I will take into account the factors you mentioned (direction, distance, etc.), things I hadn't properly considered.

 

[marsbars]

I second the ND filters. IF you get the stronger ones you can stack them for a serious amount of added exposure time. There is a photo in one of the Ansel photo how to books of the golden gate bridge in bright sun that is an exposure of several minutes if I recall correctly. The photographer used like 3 or 4 of the strongest ND filters in combo with a slow film and small aperture. The bridge shows no cars due to the long exposure.

 

[Leon]

vincent - I use a -10 stop ND filter from B+W together with a -2 stop orange (if the light is right) and get daylight expsoures of about 2 1/2 to 3 mins using fp4 at 125. You could of course try some night shots or dawn/dusk to slow down the exposure.

my website has a few examples if you want to take a look

 

[Ole]

I prefer using many short exposures to using one long one.

with 40 exposures of 1/25 each, you get the same "smoothness" as with one 40-second one (assuming the whole sequence takes you 40 seconds), yet there is the same degree of detail as with one single 1/25 exposure. Total exposure is aout the same as one 8-second one.

Or use 1/400 exposures; 18 of them for 1/25 second.
Add the exposures, and add a bit for "sluggishness". About 10% is right.

Most of my pictures with any kind of water are done like this with anything from 9 to 70 exposures. I find it matches the way we see moving water much better than the 40-second single-exposure ones.

 

[argus]

I prefer using many short exposures to using one long one.

with 40 exposures of 1/25 each, you get the same "smoothness" as with one 40-second one (assuming the whole sequence takes you 40 seconds), yet there is the same degree of detail as with one single 1/25 exposure. Total exposure is aout the same as one 8-second one.

Or use 1/400 exposures; 18 of them for 1/25 second.
Add the exposures, and add a bit for "sluggishness". About 10% is right.

Most of my pictures with any kind of water are done like this with anything from 9 to 70 exposures. I find it matches the way we see moving water much better than the 40-second single-exposure ones.

Ole,

I think I can see what you mean:
No milkey-ness (?), sharp drops of water flying around. I should try that once.

Do you have any examples to show?

It's a bit tricky if you have to manually arm the shutter while avoiding camera movement.


G

 

[Ole]

Just about every shot I do with water in it is done that way - (there was a url link here which no longer exists) is an example.

With a good sturdy tripod I've had no problems at all even with manually arming the shutter. The 121mm SA I used on the example is in a Syncro-Compur shutter, and must be set manually for each exposure.

 

[Leon]

I sometimes use Oles example too, all depends on what effect I'm after. here are two - the single rock is one long exposure, and the castle shot is 16 or 32 (cant remember) exposures.

Dead Link Removed

http://www.leontaylor-photo.co.uk/dunstan.html

my only problem with the multi exposure method is I sometimes lose a shot through camera shake, movement from having to wind on the wind crank to re-cock the shutter each time. I'm sure a LF camera wouldnt be so prone to this seeing as cocking the shutter is a much smoother and simpler action.

 

[AgX]

This is an interesting thread. At first I thought multiple exposures would be of no benefit at quite fast moving objects like waves in comparison to a long single exposure. But thinking about it a bit more and seeing those photos the difference is obvious. To achieve that misty effect with a single exposure one seems to be on the safe side with exposures as long as possible; with multiple exposures intending to gain that sort of overlap however a certain (or rather uncertain?) number of exposures must be taken in order not to achieve that misty effect.
Few exposures with a high intensity added by several of lower intensity could be a variation of the latter concept.

Off topic: with those multiple exposures preferable with long exposure times one can wipe out slow moving objects (persons at street). If one could handle that omnipotence…

 

[hka]

I did a test 2 weeks ago after seeing some nice pictures in B&W Photography.
After some try and error I became a nice and smooth watersurface. During the first tests (late evening) I metered the scene and calculated the reciprocity factor. After developing, it was not what I won't. In my next test I made a mistake while metering the scene and thought I had read a time of 2 minutes by f22 instead of 2 seconds. I take that picture with f22 and 4:15 min. Normal development in ID11 1+1 @ 9:00 min, film FP4+ @ 80 ISO. And see here the result.