Some water shots, please critique.

These are just two shots from a set I took a few weeks ago at a local park. Both shots were taken with my Xti, with the kit lens and a neutral density filter. Please let me know what you think, good or bad.

2nd one is nice. I like the creamy effect of the water and my eyes ran diagonally downwards to follow its route.

Not so keen on the first one - there's not much to look at and the highlights are blown a little on the rock.

(another York resident here...different country though!)

Generally speaking, these are good images, with good exposures, nice lighting and good composition. But the issue here is simply a question of what shutter speed is going to give you what you want. That leads to the question of what do you want?

Only you can be the final judge of what you want, but for me, the exposure is too long. I would prefer something that shows some motion, but this gives the appearance of rocketing along at 60 mph. In my opinion, 15 - 20 seconds is way too long. Most often we see times like 1 second or faster will give the appearance people expect.

However, as I implied above, everone has their own taste in such matters.

Thanks for the input, I agree that the first one is a little blown out, but for some reason it didn't really bother me. And Robert, to answer your question, I was going for the "foggy" look. When you say 15-20 seconds for the exposure is too long, do you mean too long to acheive the look I was going for, or just too long as you don't like that style? Thanks again.

with a longer shutter time, it doesn't look as much like water anymore. just my thoughts.

Welcome to the Critique Corner forum on POTN.

I think that you executed the exposure level well in both images. On the other hand, I think that the composition in both needs to be improved to better depict a point of interest and elements that draw the viewers attention to the central theme of the image.

I prefer the second image because it has somewhat better composition and exposure than the first one. The small aperture of f/36 that you used gave great depth of field in the second shot, but the downside of such a small aperture is that diffraction prevents the image from being as sharp as it could have been with an aperture of f/16 or less.

Personally, I do not care for the extremely long exposures of flowing water because it tends to kill most of the definition in the water which seems to be an area of interest. This is just a personal preference of mine and not some sort of "rule". So don't let anyone dictate how you must take a picture if you have differing ideas. I probably became burned out on the long exposures of blurred water about 40 years ago when it was a big fad, and like most things that are overused, one loses interest in it.

I also do not necessarily like to freeze water motion with extremely high shutter speeds. My preference is to allow enough blur to depict a feeling of how fast the water is flowing while at the same time giving it enough definition and clarity that I can find interest in it. It is a vague enough definition that the answer will be a bit different for each person.

slammeddub wrote in post #6304784
Thanks for the input, I agree that the first one is a little blown out, but for some reason it didn't really bother me. And Robert, to answer your question, I was going for the "foggy" look. When you say 15-20 seconds for the exposure is too long, do you mean too long to acheive the look I was going for, or just too long as you don't like that style? Thanks again.

I meant too long in comparison with the 1 second exposure that I would expect would do the job in the traditional way. In other words, 1 second would be my starting point with the expectation that I would end up at a faster setting than 1 second.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it is also true that I don't like the result that you got in #1, especially - the water has too many "sharp corners", which is unlike water.

Robert_Lay wrote in post #6306059
the water has too many "sharp corners", which is unlike water.

It is a good graphical illustration of the "central limit theorem". Given a long enough exposure that is still correctly exposed, sharp lines will develop that represent the statistical mean.

bill boehme wrote in post #6308599
It is a good graphical illustration of the "central limit theorem". Given a long enough exposure that is still correctly exposed, sharp lines will develop that represent the statistical mean.

That sucks!

I agree with the other posters, the exposure is too long for my taste. I definitely like the blurred effect of the water to show movement; I don't necessarily think it's overdone in general. My personal preference would also have you a little further from the subject. I feel like these are too close - I want to see more of the surroundings. (of course I do the close-ups all the time! I'm working on discovering other points of view.)