Fern Falls...
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Snuffy, you asked the question, so obviously you have some idea of what he's doing here. Without trying to guess the exact speed, generally speaking, what kind of shutter speed would you guess he used? i.e. Are we talking 1/100th or 1/4?
No, not a trick question. Ok, first of all, I don't know the answer either, aside from the obvious that it was a slow shutter speed, as you suggest maybe in the 1/4 or 1/2 range. Could be even longer with an ND filter.
But what I was trying to point out is that you're obviously up to speed on some of the photography concepts since you asked that question. It shows that you understand what shutter speed is, and how it affects the photo. I notice that you didn't ask what aperature he used, which makes sense, since aperature pretty much doesn't matter for the silky water effect. I'm sure we have some members that aren't even to that level yet.
So while some stuff we talk about here may be confusing to you, you're up to speed on other stuff. That's not much different than most folks around here.
If this is the Fern Falls I'm thinking of, these are in northern Idaho, northeast of Couer d'Alene.
Ron, ReDynaMix is a $16 plugin for photoshop... dirt cheap, and it can produce very nice images that you'd never know were "pseudo-HDR". just as an example, that last waterfall shot of mine that i posted a couple of days ago? that was processed using ReDynaMix. so were the two i put up about a week ago, of Falls Creek Falls and a nameless seasonal fall tumbling down some rocks. it wants a light touch, and needs to be used carefully or it pulls out all sorts of noise, but with a bit of practice, you can use ReDynaMix to boost shadow areas without blowing highlights, and it looks so natural, no one even notices...
Snuffy, Bob pretty much covered it, but i wanted to toss in my 2 cents here. for waterfalls, you don't need any particular aperture, but if you want the area around the falls to be clear, you'll need to shoot at something between f/8 and f/16. which is fine, because the smaller aperture also acts to slow down your shutter speed. even with that, though, you'll often need a polarizer or an ND filter to really get it down where it needs to be. i prefer a polarizer if possible, since it cuts glare and helps actually tone down the hightlights a bit, while an ND only darkens things and makes the shutter speed slower.
the ideal speed for waterfalls really depends on the effect you're after, and also on the volume and speed of the water. a stream or waterfall with moderate or low flow, like this shot of Fern Falls, looks great with shutter speeds between .3 and .8 second. you want to blur the water, but still retain some of the sense of flow. i rarely shoot slower than 1 second, unless the light is really dim... too long a shutter turns the water into just a featureless blur, and you lose the feeling of motion. for really heavy flows, you might even try a slightly faster shutter, as fast as maybe 1/5 or 1/8 second, depending on the effect you want. slow speeds turn really energetic waterfalls into white cotton candy, and it makes a better photo, in my opinion, if you can preserve some of the detail and feeling of actual water flowing.
oh, and to answer your question, Ron's shots were taken at .6 and .8 seconds respectively...
Excellent!! Thanks Rocky! I did really like the photos that you are talking about.
Ron
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Ron, what a lovely falls! Where are they located?
They're both nice shots. Since you asked for comments, I will say that the second shot looks a bit soft. I can't pin down exactly what's bothering me about it, but it's just not crisp in spots.
I'm going to guess that maybe this is an HDR shot? The reason I say that is that one of the soft spots I see are the branches above the fallen log on the left side. That's almost certainly due to motion of the branches, since the log is sharp. Obviously this was a long exposure, as evidenced by the silky water, so maybe that's the culprit?
If you did an HDR, then you have 3 exposures worth of movement, which makes it even more difficult to control. I fight the same problem when I do HDR of scenes like this one, and so far I haven't found a solution.
They're both nice shots. Since you asked for comments, I will say that the second shot looks a bit soft. I can't pin down exactly what's bothering me about it, but it's just not crisp in spots.
I'm going to guess that maybe this is an HDR shot? The reason I say that is that one of the soft spots I see are the branches above the fallen log on the left side. That's almost certainly due to motion of the branches, since the log is sharp. Obviously this was a long exposure, as evidenced by the silky water, so maybe that's the culprit?
If you did an HDR, then you have 3 exposures worth of movement, which makes it even more difficult to control. I fight the same problem when I do HDR of scenes like this one, and so far I haven't found a solution.
really nice, Ron, especially the second one! i agree it's a tad soft in spots, mostly in the branches on the left side, but it's not so much that it detracts from the feeling of the image. whether it's from HDR processing or a DOF thing, i can't tell by looking, but this does have an HDR "feel" to it so i'm guessing that's the culprit. this might be a good candidate for ReDynaMix, since you can achieve about the same result with only one image, so there's no chance of blurring because part of the scene moved between shots... i'm actually finding i use that more than i do Photomatix. it takes a bit of practice, and it needs a gentle touch, but it actually works quite well for a $16 plug-in!
Thanks for looking and commenting guys! You are correct in that these are HDR photos. I did them using 3 photos, and the blurred areas (leaves) are due to movement between/during photos. I was not sure how to deal with that. It was getting pretty late in the day with an area that was already in the shade, so the shudder speed was slower. I would have preferred no movement, but what there is showing really is not bothering me much either. I wanted the open feel to the second photo, so had not much choice but to include all of it.
I will check out ReDynaMix Rocky.
Thanks, Ron
I will check out ReDynaMix Rocky.
Thanks, Ron
The blur isn't bad at all, and most people probably won't even notice it. I did, since I have the exact same problem in my shots. The term "shake like a leaf" is firmly grounded in reality.
What can you do about it? Uh, shoot on a totally calm day with perfect lighting conditions? (Good luck with that!) Use a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of the leaves? (Uh, Bob, that would also freeze the motion of the water, which would eliminate the soft cottony look everybody loves, and would be far more obvious!) Well then, I guess I don't have a good answer, and if you do find one, let me know.
The one option I have considered is doing a bracketed set, with the water blurred, and a second exposure with the trees stopped by faster shutter speed and then you manually blend them together, and with all that Photoshop work you'd get about one shot per day, so it had better be really amazingly good or why bother going to that extreme?!?
I think your idea of "It's not that bad" is the right one, and to be honest I would not have mentioned it at all if you hadn't asked for comments. It's not a big deal by any means.
What can you do about it? Uh, shoot on a totally calm day with perfect lighting conditions? (Good luck with that!) Use a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of the leaves? (Uh, Bob, that would also freeze the motion of the water, which would eliminate the soft cottony look everybody loves, and would be far more obvious!) Well then, I guess I don't have a good answer, and if you do find one, let me know.
The one option I have considered is doing a bracketed set, with the water blurred, and a second exposure with the trees stopped by faster shutter speed and then you manually blend them together, and with all that Photoshop work you'd get about one shot per day, so it had better be really amazingly good or why bother going to that extreme?!?
I think your idea of "It's not that bad" is the right one, and to be honest I would not have mentioned it at all if you hadn't asked for comments. It's not a big deal by any means.
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Redynamix does some really cool stuff, I like it too. Watch your color balance when you use it though, it's been my experience that it has a nasty habit of laying a noticable blue tint over everything. Maybe it's just some setting I use or something, I don't know.
Also, HDR Effex Pro has become a favorite of mine for the far more subtle "Is that HDR, I can't tell?" type of shots. Of course if you want the cartoon, bright colors, WOW! factor, Photomatix is the go-to program.
Also, HDR Effex Pro has become a favorite of mine for the far more subtle "Is that HDR, I can't tell?" type of shots. Of course if you want the cartoon, bright colors, WOW! factor, Photomatix is the go-to program.
Thanks Bob for the further comments. I am checking Redynamix out as not both you and Rocky have suggested it. I am also considering HDR Effex Pro as Amazon has it for $65.99 right now. I really don't have the $$ for it right now, but the regular price is about $150, so just might do it.
Thanks again, Ron
Thanks again, Ron
Ron, I paid full list, or close to it, for HDR Effex. If it's on sale at less than half price right now, I'd definitely jump on it!
BTW, the forum bookstore, which is an Amazon.com affiliate, has it at the $65.99 price right now too. So if you're going to buy it anyway, please do me a favor and buy it there! Bookstore purchases help me cover the cost of running this site. Here's a link: http://www.photography-bookstore.com/shop/soft_491286_B003YUN49C_HDR-Efex-Pro.html
Edit, the price has changed, and currently it's at about $95 which could of course change again at any time. I hope a few of you jumped on it at $66 though, that was a great buy!
BTW, the forum bookstore, which is an Amazon.com affiliate, has it at the $65.99 price right now too. So if you're going to buy it anyway, please do me a favor and buy it there! Bookstore purchases help me cover the cost of running this site. Here's a link: http://www.photography-bookstore.com/shop/soft_491286_B003YUN49C_HDR-Efex-Pro.html
Edit, the price has changed, and currently it's at about $95 which could of course change again at any time. I hope a few of you jumped on it at $66 though, that was a great buy!
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Snuffy, you asked the question, so obviously you have some idea of what he's doing here. Without trying to guess the exact speed, generally speaking, what kind of shutter speed would you guess he used? i.e. Are we talking 1/100th or 1/4?
No, not a trick question. Ok, first of all, I don't know the answer either, aside from the obvious that it was a slow shutter speed, as you suggest maybe in the 1/4 or 1/2 range. Could be even longer with an ND filter.
But what I was trying to point out is that you're obviously up to speed on some of the photography concepts since you asked that question. It shows that you understand what shutter speed is, and how it affects the photo. I notice that you didn't ask what aperature he used, which makes sense, since aperature pretty much doesn't matter for the silky water effect. I'm sure we have some members that aren't even to that level yet.
So while some stuff we talk about here may be confusing to you, you're up to speed on other stuff. That's not much different than most folks around here.
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dschaecher
New Member
If this is the Fern Falls I'm thinking of, these are in northern Idaho, northeast of Couer d'Alene.
Ron, ReDynaMix is a $16 plugin for photoshop... dirt cheap, and it can produce very nice images that you'd never know were "pseudo-HDR". just as an example, that last waterfall shot of mine that i posted a couple of days ago? that was processed using ReDynaMix. so were the two i put up about a week ago, of Falls Creek Falls and a nameless seasonal fall tumbling down some rocks. it wants a light touch, and needs to be used carefully or it pulls out all sorts of noise, but with a bit of practice, you can use ReDynaMix to boost shadow areas without blowing highlights, and it looks so natural, no one even notices...
Snuffy, Bob pretty much covered it, but i wanted to toss in my 2 cents here. for waterfalls, you don't need any particular aperture, but if you want the area around the falls to be clear, you'll need to shoot at something between f/8 and f/16. which is fine, because the smaller aperture also acts to slow down your shutter speed. even with that, though, you'll often need a polarizer or an ND filter to really get it down where it needs to be. i prefer a polarizer if possible, since it cuts glare and helps actually tone down the hightlights a bit, while an ND only darkens things and makes the shutter speed slower.
the ideal speed for waterfalls really depends on the effect you're after, and also on the volume and speed of the water. a stream or waterfall with moderate or low flow, like this shot of Fern Falls, looks great with shutter speeds between .3 and .8 second. you want to blur the water, but still retain some of the sense of flow. i rarely shoot slower than 1 second, unless the light is really dim... too long a shutter turns the water into just a featureless blur, and you lose the feeling of motion. for really heavy flows, you might even try a slightly faster shutter, as fast as maybe 1/5 or 1/8 second, depending on the effect you want. slow speeds turn really energetic waterfalls into white cotton candy, and it makes a better photo, in my opinion, if you can preserve some of the detail and feeling of actual water flowing.
oh, and to answer your question, Ron's shots were taken at .6 and .8 seconds respectively...
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Excellent!! Thanks Rocky! I did really like the photos that you are talking about.
Ron
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