When I photograph waterfalls, I can see every drop of water. Some photos show waterfalls as being smooth. How?

Question

Look at this picture of a waterfall.
http://www-scf.usc.edu/~mpeter/arch%20207b/waterfall.jpg
The water cascades smoothly down it and just appears to be one silky smooth screen.
How does the photographer get that effect? In all of my pictures, the water just bumps roughly over the rocks, not smooth at all as in that picture!

Answer 1

Don't let yourself be intimidated by the lighting described above. It really doesn't need to be that complicated. A longer shutter speed is all you need to get what you're looking for. (Though I would recommend using one longer than 1/30 of a second.)

I just took both these. My shutter speed was around 8 seconds for both. Nothing but the sun was used.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4725041

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4725038

Answer 2

A lot more went into that photograph then the 'geniuses' above realize (and I use that term loosely). I know, because I know the photographer who provided Adobe with that image.

First, yes, photographing at a lower speed is the trick to getting the motion blur and causing a smooth waterfall look. This is also used for creating vehicle movement at night where all you can see are the streaks created by their headlights. A tripod is required because if you don't, the image will be blurry due to motion caused by the slightes of handshake and not just the water.

Also, there are 4 strobes on that image. 2 in the foreground to create an even highlight on the waterfall entering the pool. A barebulb set off to the right aways to light the water and another barebulb off to the left used to light the rocks and produce that unnatural glow.

The image was exposed using the information read from the light produced by the barebulb on the left. Which allowed for the highlights while still keeping detail and the shadows on the right of the image and keeping deatils in the shadows also.

Any pro will be able to look and see multiple points of entry from light showing off more than one light source. However, I can't give you the exact measurments used as I just remember this information from a course I took by the lady.

Answer 3

I am afraid I cannot tell you the exact settings for taking this shot but I can tell you the reason.

Are you using the flash? Do not do this, it causes the picture "FREEZE" and as result it gives you each drop seperately. It actually increases the speed of taking pictures so instead of getting a smooth motion blur effect.

If the sun is bright, and your flash is off, you will again get the same effect, because the sun now is acting as flash and help your camera to reduce any moment, freezing the frame.

Now to avoid this, you need to set the camera speed, shutter speed to slow, to produce motion blure. but for this you also need help of the tripod



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Ahh. There you got the values from pro :) now you better take picture and show us the result buddy

Answer 4

You need to use a slower shutter speed. Something lower that 1/15. You need a tripod to do this successfully, if you don't you might get camera shake. It would be better to shoot early in the morning or late in the evening. You could slow down the shutter to 1 second to really get the water smooth.

Answer 5

You need the light to come into the camera over a longer time.

So must move to a smaller apature (e.g. f16 or f22) and a longer shutter speed, typically 1/30th of a second.

Remember to use a tripod to hold the camera still.

The combination of apature and shutter control the light that reaches your camera.

hope this helps

Peter

Answer 6

Change the shutter speed to have the shot take longer.