Smooth look of the water

I come across lot of photographs of water birds from accomplished photographers. Surface of the water will have a beautiful smooth glowing look . Any special PP done to achieve this.

thanks and regards

Anil

Do you have a link to an example (post a link, not the actual pic taken by another photographer)?

https://www.facebook.c​om …28.100006497732​795&type=3

regards

Anil

That looks like it was probably taken during the morning golden hour period, in absolutly perfect conditions. I think morning, simply because after the heat of the day it can take a while for the water surface to become mirror smooth. So even though the wind does die away in the evenings, morning is more likely. I'm looking on my phone and couldn't see the EXIF data.

Shot in perfect conditions means that you don't need clever PP.

Alan

sanil wrote in post #18193237
I come across lot of photographs of water birds from accomplished photographers. Surface of the water will have a beautiful smooth glowing look . Any special PP done to achieve this.

thanks and regards

Anil

It's about the conditions and utilizing depth of field and the light.

Conditions, low to no wind (there's always a little), to avoid obvious waves. This also means little to no surface vegetation to serve to break the water or be a surface for wave reflection. With diffuse early or late light with the sun position not being directly pouring bleaching light down, you get a softer light and the reflections are less harsh and defined too (no major transitions in brightness, darkness, due to reflections or direct sun contact). And depth of field helps a ton, if you are shooting very low, down to the surface of the water, almost all of the surface of the water is out of the depth of field that is in focus, so it softens everything and hides blemishes on the surface, hides movement on the surface, and makes it look like a fuzzy nice mass.

Very best,

MalVeauX wrote in post #18193351
It's about the conditions and utilizing depth of field and the light.

Conditions, low to no wind (there's always a little), to avoid obvious waves. This also means little to no surface vegetation to serve to break the water or be a surface for wave reflection. With diffuse early or late light with the sun position not being directly pouring bleaching light down, you get a softer light and the reflections are less harsh and defined too (no major transitions in brightness, darkness, due to reflections or direct sun contact). And depth of field helps a ton, if you are shooting very low, down to the surface of the water, almost all of the surface of the water is out of the depth of field that is in focus, so it softens everything and hides blemishes on the surface, hides movement on the surface, and makes it look like a fuzzy nice mass.

Very best,

Thank you all.

while i somewhat agree with what is posted above...i believe the look you are trying to achieve doesn't really have much to do with the water reflection...

it's about getting low to the surface of the water...i guarantee the shot taken above the photographer was lying down to get as close as possible

here are a couple of samples to show you the difference it can make...aperture and focal length are the same, there may be a small difference in distance to subject, but that's not what makes the difference...the first shot was just me standing regular(i'm 6') so figure the shot is from a slightly elevated angle...the second shot is from the camera sitting on the ground, maybe less than 6" above the surface of the water...i've got a 70D, so i use the flip out screen and live view, as i haven't committed yet to lying in muddy conditions for a shot

Dear Anil, this effect comes not by processing, but by photographing. The secret is you have to put the camera as low as possible nearly touching the water surface. You can manage this in different ways. On a ground tripod near the lake and you have to lay down and hide yousrelf or the other way is to build a floating hide and go into the water with your construction. Search on the internet with "floating hide", you will get some information and images. Best regards Hans..

Thank you Dredaze.... I messaged the photographer - Hans Schon, He was nice enough to give me the response . Same observation as yours.

Thank you.

Best

anil