Photography Tips - Capturing Perfect Waterfalls
3 Top Tips For Photographing Flowing Water
Mar 25, 2009
Flowing water forms part of many interesting photographic scenes. But what is the best way for photographers to capture it? This article gives three Top Tips for getting the best images of waterfalls and other flowing water, and helps explain additional techniques required, such as the methods of achieving the classic silky blur effect.
Top Tip #1: Clean Sensors Give Clean Images
Ensure the camera sensor is spotlessly clean before heading out to the location. Water is one of the worst subjects for showing up dust spots! Various products exist to aid the photographer in sensor cleaning, but a simple technique for reducing this is to avoid unnecessary lens changes. Additionally avoiding changing lenses in dusty, dirty or windy conditions and keeping the lens changing time to a minimum both help reduce the frequency of sensor cleaning.
Top Tip #2: Silky Silver Blurs Require Long Exposures, Low ISOs and Small Apertures
The classic look of fast moving water is the silky silver blur, where the individual drops cannot be seen, but all blur into an ethereal silver haze. This is achieved with long shutter speeds, usually in excess of a second. The longer the shutter can stay open, the greater the silky blur effect, as the individual drops of water move further in the time the camera is recording the image. 15-30 second exposures require very low light indeed. A tripod is necessary for shooting such long exposures. Without this, the time required for the shutter to be open is far in excess of the cameras ability to record the image without camera shake.
There are two options for telling the camera that the longest possible exposure is required. The Tv setting (shutter speed priority) can be used, and a shutter speed of 1s or longer selected. However, this may require an aperture larger than the physical limits of the lens to gain a correct exposure (ie one that is not over exposed). A better idea may be for photographers to use the Av (aperture priority) setting, and set this to a relatively small aperture (large number – it's actually saying what fraction of the maximum aperture the hole is), and see what shutter speed this gives. If the shutter speed is still too fast, there are other techniques that can be added into the mix to slow the speed down.
A low ISO (the digital equivalent of film speed, usually set with a special function button on digital SLR's and higher end compacts) allows relatively slower exposures for a given level of light. For best results the lowest ISO value possible should be used, typically this is 100 or 200 to help the camera require a shutter speed of roughly a second or more.
Top Tip #3: Low Light Levels Required
The best lighting conditions for this type of photography are dull low-light days, or using the low light of dawn and dusk. However, if the sun is shining brightly, or is high in the sky, all is not lost. This article explains more.
One of the classic techniques for photographing fast flowing water is to use the silky silver blur effect. This article explains how long exposures, filters and tripods are essential tools for creating this effect. The author of this article is an award-winning landscape, travel and adventure sports photographer based on the fringes of the Peak District in the UK.
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