Rippling Brook 1

[ken1953]

Hello, I was practicing today with trying to "drag" the exposure to better detail the white water and flow. This one is heavily PS'd for contrast and brightness. and hue. But I'm interested in whether or not I achieved a good effect for the flowing water??? Of course any other comment is definetly welcome!!!!
ISO 100
f7.3 @ 1/15 sec

Thank you,
Ken

[drg]

It is not bad. The water in this photo is not all moving enough to really exploit the slow shutter speed effect. The water surface among the rocks at the right is too different to make this work in the way I'd imagine you would really like. There's also some real high contrast areas that jump out.

Technically you're not really dragging the shutter unless you were doing something with flash I'm not seeing. This is really just a slow shutter technique. The other technique has to do with altering the sync speed of the shutter and flash to acheive certain specific results.

Water shots like this are often best shot at very low ISO, long shutter speeds and tiny apertures. Of course a tripod is a must!

With digital you need to watch the overall exposure on the histogram to avoid saturation or clipping problems (the graphical display will jam up against the right edge in clipping and the top in over saturation). Clipping is also when you have over exposure and blown highlights.

The area of the lower left of the photo looks like you have gotten a pretty good effect with the water there. With a compact digital camera, sometimes it helps to use a neutral density filter or a circular polarizer to cut down the light even more to be able to leave the shutter open long enough to make this effect work well. Good luck and will look forward to more 'water experiments'.

[ken1953]

Thanx DRG..I like your suggestions. It is exactly what I needed because I didn't achieve what I wanted. This shot "was" pretty much over exposed and something I'm working on correcting. As I said, I had to do a lot of ps'ing in this to get it presentable. I don't remember for sure, but I don't think I used flash on this one, but I did try using my slow sync and rear curtain flash settings on a couple of the others. I will try posting them this weekend for comparisons. And yes...the water wasn't the best for the big foamy movement, but it still gave me an opportunity to learn and practice. Now if that darn swan will leave me alone so I can spend some more time playing with settings, I might get this down pat...hehe...(see Nature and Wildlife thread "Swan Surprise")
Thanx again for the lesson...it is exactly what I was looking for!!
Ken

[dbutler]

Well, since you have that fab new Slik, I say grab a three stop ND filter, and shoot it again if you can. These are the fun things to practice on!

[ken1953]

Thanx D...hehe...gotta pay for that Slik first before the wife will let buy anything else...the bill from the credit card hasn't even arrived yet!!!! hehehehehe...and I can go to several creeks around here for these kinds of shots...nice are for "water" shots!!! Lots of creeks, streams, and the Mississippi River to boot!!!! hehe
Ken

[dennylee60]

Hello,
Please excuse the silly question, what is "dragging the exposure"?

[ken1953]

Hello,
Please excuse the silly question, what is "dragging the exposure"?

See DRG's post above, as he understands it much better than I. I am probably even using the wrong term, as I am in a "learning" phase. And it's not a silly question, because it's a photographic technique that you may want to try if you don't already do it. I'll leave it to the experts to explain it, as I'm still trying to figure out how to do it myself. hehe...
Ken

[mdmc]

Ken, cant believe I missed this post:q
There's a sweet spot for about 15 minuets during the day just before the sun comes up or after it goes down that is good for an exposure of 15sec f11 approx. If your meter can read that, no prob, if not work from there and bracket like heck.
You should come up with something interesting the first time out.
Aint tripods great?
Mark.