Feathery Creek

These are the first flowing water shots I've been happy with.

Please give me feedback. The lighting was really tough. Very bright, mid-day sun (95 degrees) and under the canopy of trees. So it was mostly shady with spurts of crazy bright sun.

This is Munson Creek in the foothills of the Coast Range in Oregon (near Tillamook).

Very nice. I need to find some flowing water and take some practice shots myself. What kind of settings did you use for these?

i like the leaves and the movement in the second one. the first one does not interest me much however composition wise. keep it up.

Thanks for the comments.

Here's the EXIF Data:

First One:
Date Taken:2006-06-25 15:13:01Date Digitized:2006-06-25 15:13:01Date Modified:2006-06-25 21:43:11Make:CanonModel: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT Size: 2877x2302 Bytes: 1217161 Aperture: f/16.0 ISO: 100 Focal Length: 28mm (guess: 37mm in 35mm) Exposure Time: 1s (1/1)Flash:Flash did not fire, compulsory flash modeExposure Program:Aperture priorityExposure Bias:-0.33ExposureMode:White Balance:autoColorSpace:sRGB


Second One:

Date Taken:2006-06-25 15:26:01Date Digitized:2006-06-25 15:26:01Date Modified:2006-06-25 21:37:08Make:CanonModel: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT Size: 2524x2019 Bytes: 566985 Aperture: f/20.0 ISO: 200 Focal Length: 54mm (guess: 79mm in 35mm) Exposure Time: 1s (1/1)Flash:Flash did not fire, compulsory flash modeExposure Program:Aperture priorityExposure Bias:ExposureMode:White Balance:autoColorSpace:sRGB

The water seems nice and silky smooth T,you managed a good job considering ...

Wow, I would be happy with those too. Beautiful!

Thanks Dimitri and HrcRacing. I appreciate the feedback. I'm excited to find my next stream. These are really fun.

Both are great. I really like the first one more though. Great colors and detail with oh so silky water. Keep'em coming!

I like the first a lot _ good job.

Please pardon my ignorance but could someone please explain to me why people try to create this effect with the water? I guess it must be technically more difficult than a normal photograph but to me it also looks very fake and strange. This isn't a criticism, I genuinely would like to know and would appreciate someone explaining it to me. Thanks

Very pretty! I like the second one best.

Thanks again everyone for your comments. I really appreciate the feedback.

Rachel, as to why people do this, I can only tell you why I wanted to give it a try. I think these slow shutter speeds really create a moody feel where you can get a real sens of the motion of the water. I find it appealing. Don't get me wrong, I like shots where the water is stopped as well. Both have their own merits.

Bottom line: I think it's pleasing to look at.

To each his own, I guess.

rachel_ashling wrote:
Please pardon my ignorance but could someone please explain to me why people try to create this effect with the water? I guess it must be technically more difficult than a normal photograph but to me it also looks very fake and strange. This isn't a criticism, I genuinely would like to know and would appreciate someone explaining it to me. Thanks

Well from my experience, taking shots of running water like this with a "typical" shutter speed (of say 1/125 or 1/250) makes the water look pretty ugly. Because it freezes the individual particles of falling water, it tends to look equally, if not more odd that doing a time exposure such as above. In the end though it probably comes down to personal/artistic taste.

Oh and nice shots Turnerzdad, I think you've got the techique down quite nicely. I need to add some ND's to my filter collection (which I've only just started) as more often than not, I find even at F/22 and on 100 ISO, I'm still fighting to get a slow enough shutter speed. Maybe that's just my fault for living in sunny Scotland!

Well done! I prefer #2.
Did you use neutral filter?

Thanks for the comments. These were taken with my Tamron 28-75 with no filters.