Water flowing over rocks

[tif88]

I think this would go under Landscape. I'm new, to here and to photography. I just now got my hands on a DSLR 2 days ago and one of the things I wanted to do was take a picture of a waterfall because I love the look of the dreamy/soft water when the shutter is open long. Anyway, this is one of the first pictures I took, and it was actually an accident. I was trying to get a picture of the waterfall, and I had to place the camera on the rocks to keep it steady and I totally misjudged the angle the camera needed to be to get the waterfall, but when I opened the picture on my computer I thought it was great (to my untrained eye). My waterfall pictures were actually very overexposed, and this was the only one that came out right. Anyway, to me, I like it, and think it looks good, but I'm not sure if all the rocks and little amount of water shows what I really intended to capture. So... after that long intro.. here is the pic and EXIF data.. :-D (..and it looks like photobucket may have softened the sharpness of the rocks when I resized it.. but maybe that doesn't matter)



Canon EOS REBEL T1i
f/29
Exposure: 3.2 sec
ISO-100
Focal length: 33 mm

[EOBeav]

The problem I see is that the rocks appear to be too soft, like they weren't focused properly. But that's understandable if this was a mistake shot.

[Krusty79]

Welcome to DPS. The pros on this site do not recommend an aperture smaller than around f/13 or else you may encounter diffraction, which can degrade image sharpness. I think you also need some green plants or something to contrast with the color of the rocks and water.

[tif88]

Thanks for the tips!

I didn't know about the aperture being too small.. I tend to keep it as small as I can. I can't wait to see the difference.

I'll go back and reshoot when I can and see if I can get it right and maybe actually get the waterfall in the picture! :-)

[graciousness]

I think if taking shots like this one, you need to use a neutral density filter to get a more desired effect with blurring water motion. Now I can't explain this technically as I, myself, need to understand what this filter does, but I know that it will really help achieve a greater result (having looked at similar photos that have used ND).

Can someone explain this please?

Anyhoo, here is wikipedia...Neutral density filter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[kstiltne]

An ND filter is nothing more than sunglasses for your camera. Without one, your photos get waaaayyyy overexposed when you try to shoot at f/11 with a 1 second exposure. But add an ND filter (they coming in varying strengths...lightly tinted sunglasses vs. very darkly tinted sunglasses), and less light gets to the sensor, meaning you get a properly exposed photo.

[jentenna]

On the topic of diffraction at high f-stops, I thought I'd share this link I got from ravncat, another DPS user. It has some nice illustrations of how you lose sharpness as you reduce the aperture size:

Understanding Lens Diffraction

On ND filters... Since there's usually an optimal time length to get the "look" you want for your long exposure, you're usually on a shutter-priority, and you don't have much choice in your aperture. On a bright day then, you may find that you need a teeny aperture (say, f/29 ) to avoid over-exposing the photo. With an ND filter, and you can reduce the light coming in by 1 or more stops. This allows you to open up your aperture more, and you can reduce/avoid the diffraction issues.

As for this photo... it does look soft to me, and I think it's a little over-exposed, especially on the rocks at the top of the photo. I like this exposure length for the water though... the result is very nice and soft. And I like the way some of the rocks are hovering over the water. It produces a very cool shadowing effect.

[milosh]

Welcome to DPS!

There are a couple of issues here,

First, exposure: the rocks in the background are blown out (overexposed). This is due to the shutter speed being too slow. To overcome this, you could shoot it in a different time of day (when there will be less light), or you could use an ND filter (ND filter would block some of the light entering the lens, allowing you to keep the slow shutter speed while not overexposing the rocks), or you could take two photos (one exposed for the water and second for the rocks) and combine them in post processing (if you're good at it).

Second is about composition, I think it would be better if you included some rocks as a foreground, instead of a background. The photo is blurry, is seems like your lens wasn't focused properly. Just keep shootin' and when you do, try to keep the things we told you in mind, and your photos will get better in no time.

[tif88]

Ahh.. I see everything ya'll are talking about. Thanks for the input! I'm practicing everyday on different stuff (like yesterday I took pictures of my 2 year old HYPER niece running around the yard, but I need work with the manual settings so it pretty much stayed on the sports setting :-/). I really want to master using my camera on manual settings. I think the best thing for me to do with the waterfall pictures (which was really fun to *try* to shoot) is to get a ND filter, b/c the waterfall was way overexposed and some parts didn't come out soft looking, so hopefully the ND filter will allow me to keep the shutter open longer to get it softer and not overexposed. Hopefully when I post my next moving water picture ya'll will say it's an improvement! :-) I hadn't even of heard of these filters till now.

[milosh]

As said previously, you can just try shooting a waterfall later in the day, when there is less light. Less light means you'll need longer exposure to get everything exposed properly, and that's exactly what you need for the water. During sunset, light levels are dropping really quickly, so only 20 minutes or so, can mean a lot regarding your exposure. During that time, you need to keep a constant look on the exposure and change it as it gets darker. Just keep the lowest ISO you can set (probably 100), and stay away from Auto ISO mode.