Shooting Moving Water

ishutteratthethought · May 13, 2009

Hello,
Just getting a feel on how you expose for moving water like a landscape image that contains a river with rapids for instance. Too slow or to long of an exposure the water turns to dust or milk, too quick or short exposure you lose the fluidity. Is there a standard or is it hit and miss? Seems that some photographers consistently get beautiful flowing water in their images. I would imagine that it depends on the speed of the flow.
Soon I am going to the land of flowing water galore in Colorado.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Steve

Nicholas Lindan · May 13, 2009

I find 1/15 of a second is a good compromise speed for most shots.

Try bracketing 1/4 to 1/30 to find the look that you like the best. See if there is a waterfall or rapids nearby where you can take some test shots before going to Colorado (or take a d*tal camera and use it to experiment, sort of as a Polaroid replacement don't you know).

Water shots are best on cloudy days or in the shade. Spectacular ones are possible in sunlight but are very hard to print well.

Christopher Walrath · May 13, 2009

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.167 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

If you're running into a too bright exposure because there's no room on your camera/lens to account for reciprocity (ie. whited out image) tou should consider some ND filters. Check out my gallery. There two examples there.

Venchka · May 13, 2009

A polarizer is always useful around water. Sometimes a multi-second exposure is perfect. It all depends on how fast the water is moving.

Travis Nunn · May 13, 2009

It all depends on the water flow and how you want the image portrayed. Most of my waterfalls are shot at 1 second, some at 2 seconds others at 1/2 second (again, depending on the circumstances and what I want to portray). If I were to be shooting some strong rapids, however, I might want to expose so that the motion of the rapids is frozen.

The first time I ever photographed a waterfall, I used an entire roll experimenting with shutter speeds. It's worth spending a roll to see what you like best.

I also use a polarizer on every waterfall shot.

flash26c · May 13, 2009

You can also take multiple exposures if your camera allows: for example, if your exposure is f16 @ 1/30, try four exposures at f16 @ 1/250 Makes the water look a bit more as you see it.

ishutteratthethought · May 13, 2009

Thanks for the advise!
Much appreciated
Steve

Maris · May 14, 2009

Here's a rule told to me in all sincerity by a (famous?) landscape photographer. If you can't make up your mind what shutter speed to use for flowing water:

Express the amount of water in the picture area as a fraction. Then take the reciprocal of that fraction. The number you get is your shutter speed in seconds.

For example, if water is 1% of the picture area then the shutter speed should be 100 seconds. If water is 2/3 of the picture then the shutter speed is 1.5 seconds.

Just to make things complicated remember a 5 second exposure can be done as 20 exposures of 1/4 second if you don't want the water to look too silky. Doing this without a self-cocking shutter is asking for trouble.

Poisson Du Jour · May 14, 2009

I make a point of examining how fast the water is flowing, and guesstimate a starting point that I then bracket around. I personally like the streaked effect where the water is recorded as fine lines (and thus the water is said to have detail) rather than the gluggy "icrecream" effect so over-used. Unlike waterfalls and spouts, rivers, creeks and so forth can occasionally (in my personal experience) be difficult to get the streaked affect, so I keep the exposure brief (between 1.2 and 2.4 seconds) over several brackets. Often, though, I will have little if any control to achieve the effect I want and thus probably will default to that "disaster at the creamery" effect; in such a case, I'd be looking strongly at including a 'balancing' focal point so the water is not interpreted as the major point of interest. Multiple exposures are indeed a lot of fun but not something I tend to wax enthusiastically about when I'm shin-deep in freezing water...

Morry Katz · May 14, 2009

I don't like the flowing milk look or the stopped-dead-in-its tracks look, so I shoot moving water at 1/30 sec with 100 ISO film. (Delta 100).
At that speed you can hold some detail but create the illusion of movement. Try it. You'll like it.

Morry Katz - Lethbridge Alberta

Sirius Glass · May 14, 2009

Maris touched on taking into consideration the percentage of the photograph that is moving water. I will take one photograph at a fast shutter speed for reference later. Then I will bracket from 1/2 to 1/8 seconds.

The reason for the reference photograph is that some times the faster shutter speed turns out to be better. For example, when I was shooting Fall colors and waterfalls in western New York while the leaves were falling in great numbers due to a breeze the short exposure times showed the leaves in the air and the long exposures did not show the leaves. When the leaves were not falling the longer exposures were better.

Steve

Shooting Moving Water

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