How do you get the "silken" look on flowing water?

[David H. Bebbington]

Welcome to my world!

Photographing in the redwoods usually means exposures of 15 seconds to 30 minutes. One's hair on arms and legs (I usually wear shorts) become hypersenstitive wind meters!

Mid-day, as the down slope winds reverse themselves and become up canyon winds, one can often sneak in a photo or two during the stillness of the change.

Vaughn

There is probably a worthwhile technical point here - if you are shooting with a reasonable 210 lens on 4x5" and applying enough (forward) front tilt to get front to back sharpness, there is actually no need to close down further than f11 or so - in fact, you would probably get a respectable result at full aperture (assuming this is f5.6) or f8. This would arguablly represent an acceptable trade-off against the risk of wind blur with longer exposures!

Regards,

David

 

[Charles Webb]

I agree completely with Bob F. If the water turns to milk the exposure is way to long. I prefer water to appear as water not as a soft stream of something else.

This can be a wonderful process, but is most often over done by picture makers today. So many people today see a an old technique that originally occurred by necessity not a trick. they immediately want to copy it as something new and different. They think I have got to try that! But usually when they get the chance they way over do it. Go ahead and try it but use some common sense.

Water in no way appears in my life the way it is depicted by some photographers. The blurring water captured by the long exposures necessary to make any image in the early days of picture making was not then nor is now in my opinion considered to be a work of fine art!

This post in no way is intended as criticism of any one person who prefers "silkey Milk" to georgous stream water!
It is simply a statement of my preference and opinion.

Shoot short enough to show movement, but not so long as to create the antiquated old time milky look of early camera
works.

Charlie................................
I have a bucket of water standing by in case of flames.

 

[Ole]

...
I have a bucket of water standing by in case of flames.

I haven't tried the "multi-click method" with a bucket of water, but it has become more or less my "standard method" of dealing with running or falling water.

It gives a result i feel is closer to our perception of streams - as both smooth and sharp at the same time, detailed and soft, and...

 

[mitch brown]

is there a methoid to blur water and still keep the other objects in the picture sharp even if there is a slight wind?
stupid i know , but there might be a way.
mitch

 

[David H. Bebbington]

is there a methoid to blur water and still keep the other objects in the picture sharp even if there is a slight wind?
stupid i know , but there might be a way.
mitch

As has been mentioned earlier, it is possible to make an exposure not in one go but in small steps to preserve sharpness. Doing it selectively for different parts of the picture would be much harder! Off the top of my head, one way would be to use (you might have to build) a traveling matte unit, which is a device generally used only with movie cameras to mask off parts of a scene which are exposed at different times (think of any movie where an actor appears on screen twice at the same time in different roles). This would work but would involve more effort than most folks would be willing to make! It wouldn't be too hard to make, though, taking a Cokin filter holder or similar as a basis.

Regards,

David

 

[Vaughn]

There is probably a worthwhile technical point here - if you are shooting with a reasonable 210 lens on 4x5" and applying enough (forward) front tilt to get front to back sharpness, there is actually no need to close down further than f11 or so - in fact, you would probably get a respectable result at full aperture (assuming this is f5.6) or f8. This would arguablly represent an acceptable trade-off against the risk of wind blur with longer exposures!

Regards,

David

I'm shooting an 8x10, normal lens is 300mm, with occasional 19" and 210mm. I can rarely use much tilt...the "foreground" is often a tree close to the camera that goes from the bottom of the image to the top...or close branches that extend into the upper corners of the image Front tilt just throws the top of the image way out of focus.

I know what you are getting on about, but that sort of image is out in the open...rarely deep in the redwoods. Using a lens wide open or at f11 would be wasting film (if one wants good focus throughout the whole image).

Vaughn

Vaughn

 

[Les McLean]

is there a methoid to blur water and still keep the other objects in the picture sharp even if there is a slight wind?
stupid i know , but there might be a way.
mitch

30 years ago I started to play with multiple exposures for no other reason than the Minolta Autocord I had just purchased could do it. For the next 10 years I discovered many things about the use of multiple exposures; one discovery was that in an image of marlin grass and clouds made using multiple exposures on a windy day some areas of grass were rendered absolutely pin sharp after giving 14 exposures over a period of 10 minutes. The clouds and other areas of grass where blurred as I expected and had planned for. I found it hard to believe but regularly repeated this in the next few years.

I also noticed that the wind seems to take a particular course through a field of standing grass that can be identified by the areas of grass that are blurred next to grass that is sharp.

 

[Baxter Bradford]

Rule of thumb 1/4 to 2s - there will be exceptions!

Variables: speed of flowing water, Focal length of lens, distance to water from camera.

The multi-exposure that Les uses can be very effective in near constant water conditions, freezing specular drops, it is not really any good with coastal waves.

 

[Lee L]

The multi-exposure that Les uses can be very effective in near constant water conditions, freezing specular drops, it is not really any good with coastal waves.

OK, now I have to try it with coastal waves, just to see what it looks like. It obviously won't look "normal", but it could look interesting.

Lee

 

[Les McLean]

The multi-exposure that Les uses can be very effective in near constant water conditions, freezing specular drops, it is not really any good with coastal waves.

Sorry Baxter I have to disagree with you or at least modify your comment re coastal waves. Multiples do work with moderately sizes waves. For those who have my book see page 60 "Tide Artog, Wales" to see the result of multiples with waves.

 

[Vaughn]

snip...The multi-exposure that Les uses can be very effective in near constant water conditions, freezing specular drops, it is not really any good with coastal waves.

Definitely different than waterfalls and creeks, but "not really any good" is subjective. I have used it for an interesting effect, but that was years ago. When one clicks the shutter is what can make multiple exposures with medium to big waves interesting . Making the exposures whenever the waves hit rocks, yields an interesting fog around those rocks...especially multiple semi-long exposures (instead of freezing shots). I have a photo of a single rock in the surf zone (multiple long exposures of the waves hitting the rock) -- it made the rock look more like a mountain top sticking out of the clouds.

Multiple short exposures of the surf zone can make the ocean look like there is a thin layer of fog just above the water.

Vaughn

 

[John Curran]

I have a photo of a single rock in the surf zone (multiple long exposures of the waves hitting the rock) -- it made the rock look more like a mountain top sticking out of the clouds.

Multiple short exposures of the surf zone can make the ocean look like there is a thin layer of fog just above the water.

Vaughn

Cool info Vaughn, got to try this.

Best regards

john

 

[yuhimase]

The information is very interesting. I like all post.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Some of the shots I always enjoy seeing here are those of "babbling brooks" where the water flowing over the rocks has a soft "silken" appearance. Even though everything else may be in sharp focus - the water flows over the rocks in a soft silk-like fashion.

How is this done? Is it by exposure settings? Or is it done in during processing?

It's done in fauxtoshop. Can't be done with film.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Ghost thread alert! The original discussion was in 2007, and the original poster (along with several other key contributors) no longer participate in APUG!

And NO, it's not done in Photoshop. It's called a long exposure. Anything much past 1 second will give you blurred water to a greater or lesser degree, and even exposures between 1/8th and 1 second will blur water a bit.