Glass like water effect

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simonmoran

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So I was down at the quayside today testing my new 600d, and I wanted to use a long exposure to get the glass like water effect.

The water wasn't moving particularly fast but I couldn't dial in any combination of aperture, iso and shutter speed that would result in anything other than a massively over exposed picture.

I tried setting the aperture to its highest f jumper and even at iso 100 and a shutter speed of 1 second, the whole picture was massively overblown. Now it was a reasonably bright day (if heavily overcast) and the composition was split roughly 50/50 water and sky.

Given the above, is it possible to get the desired effect or would I need a faster moving subject (allowing a slower shutter speed and thus not over exposing the image). Or do I need a composition that doesn't contain two extremes of exposures.
 
simonmoran said:
Yes, that would make sense. They're expensive though!
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You could always give a piece of glass from a welding mask a try, seen a few that do but not tried it myself, only thing is you'd need to do a bit of colour correction in photoshop/Lightroom etc
 
A circular polariser would add about 2-stops to the shot, but to flatten out the water completely, you'd want at least 1 second, ideally over 10-seconds, for the sea/torrent of water - about a minute - for which you'll need dawn/dusk or a 10-stop filter.

You can get a Cokin one for about £20 I think.

You could also try shooting in Tv mode and set the exposure to 30-seconds and let the camera figure out the rest. Won't help in borad daylight but would get the effect you want :)
 
Durbs said:
A circular polariser would add about 2-stops to the shot, but to flatten out the water completely, you'd want at least 1 second, ideally over 10-seconds, for the sea/torrent of water - about a minute - for which you'll need dawn/dusk or a 10-stop filter.

You can get a Cokin one for about £20 I think.

You could also try shooting in Tv mode and set the exposure to 30-seconds and let the camera figure out the rest. Won't help in borad daylight but would get the effect you want :)
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Great thanks. Got a link?

I currently have a canon 18-55 kit lens and the 50mm 1.8. What size filters do I need for these?
 
simonmoran said:
Great thanks. Got a link?

I currently have a canon 18-55 kit lens and the 50mm 1.8. What size filters do I need for these?
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FYI (for any future lenses) - the filter size is written on the front of the lens. You should see the 58 and 52 that Martyn has given you.
 
Over the weekend, I took quite a few longish exposure shots of surf off Trebarwith Strand in North Cornwall. Not yet printed any to compare 4s and 10s exposures but in the thumbnails, there doesn't seem to be much difference. I was a bit limited by an f/9 minimum aperture, hence the relatively fast(!) shutter speeds - next time we stay down there, I'll take the D700 kit for longer exposures. I was shooting at dusk - 16:55 - to get as long as possible without filtration. At 16:17, I had managed to get down to 2s for some stream shots. Once I've sorted out which to resize for the gallery, I'll post a few in a thread.
 
OK, here are the promised shots, taken at or near dusk (I was out at pre dawn the next morning too but these 2 show the effect better).

DSF3146.jpg


DSF3145.jpg


And 3 different speeds of a babbling brook (which hit the national news a few years ago when it became a raging torrent that washed the heart out of Boscastle!)

DSF3142.jpg


DSF3138.jpg


DSF3134.jpg


All the above were shot using a Fuji X-10 supported by a red Pod. The stream ones also give a glimpse of the greater DoF when using small apertures.
 
On the way home yesterday, we stopped off at the entrancing St Nectan's Glen and waterfall where I took these on a Fuji HS-30 using a polariser to drop the shutter speed since it was lunchtime with a lot more light than the dusk shots.

DSCF0290.jpg


DSCF02841.jpg


DSCF0283.jpg


DSCF0281.jpg
 
Nod said:
OK, here are the promised shots, taken at or near dusk (I was out at pre dawn the next morning too but these 2 show the effect better).

DSF3146.jpg


DSF3145.jpg


And 3 different speeds of a babbling brook (which hit the national news a few years ago when it became a raging torrent that washed the heart out of Boscastle!)

DSF3142.jpg


DSF3138.jpg


DSF3134.jpg


All the above were shot using a Fuji X-10 supported by a red Pod. The stream ones also give a glimpse of the greater DoF when using small apertures.
Click to expand...


I like them but I think the second photo might look good with a little bit of cropping. So these were taken without any filter?
 
Yup, no filter, just naturally low light levels due to the time of day. None of them were taken with much artistic merit in mind, purely to show the effects of different shutter speeds in shots with moving water. The surf was reasonably strong - there were a group of lads out on their boards earlier in the afternoon when the light was too strong for any appreciable shutter speeds. With the stream, the shots were again purely to show the effects of different shutter speeds. I was hoping that the waterfall shots wouldn't be quite so underexposed but we visit the area quite regularly so a reshoot is certainly on the cards, as I said, next time with a DSLR rather than a selection of compacts. I'm sure some judicious PP (possibly just levels but maybe some dodging) will bring out more detail in the shadowy areas - I'll have a play tomorrow! (Prints are better at showing those photos than the monitor - 300dpi is far better than 72ppi!)
 
I like the last one of St Nectan's Glen - just a shame about the spray on the lens!
 
Couldn't be helped! One of the attractions of the place was the amount of recent rain - plenty of water falling. TBH, I was a bit surprised that the drops showed up so much at relatively wide apertures (the HS-30 only goes down to f/11 and that shot was at f/8). The filter got droppy within a second of clearing :( . Looking forward to a return in a few months - less water but more control (will be taking the DSLR kit).
 
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