Learning Landscapes - Water Fountain Test Silky Water

[Stagecoach]

Hi Grahame,

thank you for sharing...

Is this a typo?

It's already been covered but you could have reduced your Auto ISO max limit setting down in steps from it's 1600 to lower and you would have seen that your Shutter speed would have increased accordingly which would have given you a more silky effect.

ie; I choose the largest aperture available in Aperture Priority which in theory should've given me the slowest possible shutter speed for the silky water effect? And the shutter speed was super slow

Why do you feel that the chosen ISO would make little difference to this image? ie; ISO 100 or 1600...

Yes, camera limits in this day and age... not fun!

Hi Christina,

Well spotted, yes it is a typo ! it was meant to be 'decreased'.

So in other words, with the settings you had when taking the shot and seeing that the water was not silky enough for your liking you could have simply reset the max limit of your auto ISO lower than 1600, shoot again and continue reducing until you get the silkiness (speed) you want. In other words, you did not fully use what was available to you whilst sticking to Aperture Priority with Auto ISO under the conditions of the exercise


I suspect that with your camera the visual impact of noise in this final image is not going to be of real significance and there are also methods of reducing it in post.

Grahame

[Brownbear]

Phew.. Thank you for confirming.

And thank you so much for explaining what aperture priority does... I was not aware of that and I suspect that is something that Mike wanted me to learn on my own... However, I will try just that in aperture priority so I can see it with my own eyes..

Good to know.

Thank you Grahame.

Hi Christina,

Well spotted, yes it is a typo ! it was meant to be 'decreased'.

So in other words, with the settings you had when taking the shot and seeing that the water was not silky enough for your liking you could have simply reset the max limit of your auto ISO lower than 1600, shoot again and continue reducing until you get the silkiness (speed) you want. In other words, you did not fully use what was available to you whilst sticking to Aperture Priority with Auto ISO under the conditions of the exercise


I suspect that with your camera the visual impact of noise in this final image is not going to be of real significance and there are also methods of reducing it in post.

Grahame

[Mike Buckley]

And thank you so much for explaining what aperture priority does... I was not aware of that and I suspect that is something that Mike wanted me to learn on my own...

Actually, that's a detail that several of us already explained. We understand that reading about it doesn't necessarily cause it to sink in and perhaps even makes things more confusing than ever. That's why I'm more and more insistent that you approach these details in a disciplined, systematic method that allows you to experience the issues.

It's important that you give yourself the time to experience a particular issue repeatedly -- not just one or two times -- until the logic begins to sink in. After even more repetitions of experiencing the same issue, applying the information will eventually become intuitive. Once that happens, you can then move on to the next issue. But not until that happens, so you do have to be patient.

It might be helpful for you to print some notes pertaining to a particular issue and store them in your bag or log them into your smart phone or whatever mobile device you use. As an example, you could make notes that are pertinent to shooting waterfalls. As another example, I keep notes in my bag that pertain to the various settings for using my speed light both on and off the camera. I could never remember this stuff on my own because I don't use it regularly, so the notes are a lifesaver.

[Brownbear]

Well, for some reason I did not get it until Grahame explained it in terms of how I could manage silky water, ie; controlling the shutter speed indirectly by changing the iso... Which likely means that I could also control the aperture chosen in Shutter speed priority by changing the iso, ie; higher iso would mean a larger aperture, and a lower iso would lead to a smaller aperture? just guessing? if yes, that is amazing.

Yes, will do and I will also write a few notes for the waterfall. Thank you.

Actually, that's a detail that several of us already explained. We understand that reading about it doesn't necessarily cause it to sink in and perhaps even makes things more confusing than ever. That's why I'm more and more insistent that you approach these details in a disciplined, systematic method that allows you to experience the issues.

It's important that you give yourself the time to experience a particular issue repeatedly -- not just one or two times -- until the logic begins to sink in. After even more repetitions of experiencing the same issue, applying the information will eventually become intuitive. Once that happens, you can then move on to the next issue. But not until that happens, so you do have to be patient.

It might be helpful for you to print some notes pertaining to a particular issue and store them in your bag or log them into your smart phone or whatever mobile device you use. As an example, you could make notes that are pertinent to shooting waterfalls. As another example, I keep notes in my bag that pertain to the various settings for using my speed light both on and off the camera. I could never remember this stuff on my own because I don't use it regularly, so the notes are a lifesaver.

[Mike Buckley]

just guessing?

Never guess. Guessing is not only not helpful to you, it's problematic. If you can't figure something out, ask. But never guess.

[Brownbear]

Good point... I will figure it out by myself systematically via a brief foray into SS priority.

Never guess. Guessing is not only not helpful to you, it's problematic. If you can't figure something out, ask. But never guess.

[Manfred M]

Aside from that, when you use automated bracketing, you absolute have to keep track of where you are in the cycle of brackets. As an example, you have to know whether you have automated bracketing set to 2 or 3 shots.

Mike - I'm not sure if all Nikons do this, but on the D800, if you set the release mode to continuous mode and hold the shutter release down (I tend to use the high speed setting), the camera will shoot all of the bracketed shots that have been set and will then stop automatically. If you shoot this way, no need to count; the camera does it for you.

[nimitzbenedicto]

Mike - I'm not sure if all Nikons do this, but on the D800, if you set the release mode to continuous mode and hold the shutter release down (I tend to use the high speed setting), the camera will shoot all of the bracketed shots that have been set and will then stop automatically. If you shoot this way, no need to count; the camera does it for you.

For ref purposes: My Nikon D300 also does this.
Custom setting e5. Fn button
( Continuous Hi/Slow spd modes )

I'm sure her D7100 does it too.

[Mike Buckley]

That's a great tip, guys, about using continuous mode when using automated bracketing. However, I looked up the information about that in the manual for Christina's and my camera and there is a wrinkle, albeit a small wrinkle: "If the camera is turned off before all shots in the bracketing sequence have been taken, bracketing will resume from the next shot in the sequence when the camera is turned on."

[pasusan]

Well, for some reason I did not get it until Grahame explained it in terms of how I could manage silky water, ie; controlling the shutter speed indirectly by changing the iso... Which likely means that I could also control the aperture chosen in Shutter speed priority by changing the iso, ie; higher iso would mean a larger aperture, and a lower iso would lead to a smaller aperture? just guessing? if yes, that is amazing.

Yes, will do and I will also write a few notes for the waterfall. Thank you.

Christina - You are correct in that ISO, shutter speed and aperture are related and interdependent on each other. Have you studied the exposure triangle? In your example of Shutter speed priority... Higher ISO means more sensitivity to light, causing the aperture to close down or be smaller. When you are talking about smaller and larger aperture - you are talking about the actual size of the opening, right? (As opposed to the f number.)

[ajohnw]

I am not a fan of silky water. To me Loose Canon's 1st shot is easily the best as it shows movement. There was also an excellent shot of a Welsh stream in flood in a recent competition - hardly and votes at all. To set a camera to take that in one shot would be a fair old challenge.

Me - not much done on waterfalls. I did take a couple of shots of this one. Composition problems and I wouldn't slikyfy it. Not happy with the processing either. Done on my original monitor It looked ok on that and really needs reworking at a smaller size too.




Think a bit more on P mode is needed. It isn't an auto mode really. Without changes it sets aperture and speeds according to some rules that the camera manufacturer has come up with. The important thing to realise is that the exposure is correct and will remain correct as the control wheel is turned. Many manuals suggest it should be used for snap shots - fleeting moments when there isn't time to worry about camera settings. On the other hand most cameras allow the base settings to be changed very quickly via one control. So say it came up with F8 at 1/125 secs and the user thought I want less depth of field than that. A quick turn of the wheel could change it to say F4 at 1/250 sec or even F2 at 1/500 sec. Equally the exposure could be shifted to F32 at about 1/30 sec. This effectively give aperture or speed priority with one wheel and if it wont reach the desired settings the ISO needs to be changed.. Say F2 at 1/500 sec has too shallow a depth of field for the action you want to freeze at 100 ISO if the camera was set to 400 the camera would offer F8 at 1/500 sec via the same control. In practice there is a need to find out what the camera does when something like that is changed - easy point it out of the window and find out. Stops, speeds and ISO all relate to each other with a factor of 2 = 1 stop.

Given the partly useless viewfinders in cameras these days that rely heavily on auto focus P mode has another use. Say some one is not sure that F8 at 1/125 will give the desired depth of field. It's easy to simply take another shot without even removing the camera from the eye at F16 or F4 etc. Later when people view the shots they can see the effect and soon get an idea what settings a given situation is likely to require. The same applies to freezing motion. If they never learn well just carry on taking multiple shots. In the extreme freezing motion needs something else as well - panning the camera or a one touch zoom if the object is approaching the camera.

When using P mode or any other mode really some cameras might show a hand or something similar when slow shutter speeds are selected. Take no notice and shoot just to see how steady you can be in practice. Stance and where the arms rest comes into this and just like precision shooting it's probably best to take the shot at the top of an in breath making sure you are well oxygenated. Crouching can help too or even making use of a nearby seat if something is available. I hate tripods but at some point they have to be used.

As far as silky water goes as indicated earlier neutral density filters are likely to be needed - probably several of them for all circumstances and several shots wouldn't be bad idea either. There is a type of polarising filter that can be used as an ND filter. Something I want to look into actually as there may be further effects on digital cameras. Basically these filter consist of 2 linear rather than circular polariser and as one is rotated against the other the amount of ND they give varies.

John
-

[batmura]

Christina,

My rule of thumb regarding ISO is - if I am shooting on a tripod, which is what I do 99% of the time - keep it at 100, and *never* set it to auto whether I am on a tripod or not. When shooting aperture priority, it is understandable (and often right) to let the camera handle some of the settings while you're the boss about the aperture, the opening on your lens, and you can focus on other details like composition, angle, etc. If you set your ISO to auto, you're basically handing over the control to your camera and it will act as it pleases , especially in low light conditions. That may work against you in more than one way. For example, you will need a longer shutter speed, usually a few seconds, but the auto-ISO function may simply increase the light sensitity to something like 1/8 of a second, and thus create a murky, uninteresting image as far as getting silky smooth water movement is concerned.

Even when shooting in the dark and needing a fast shutter speed, I will manually increase ISO because *I* want to decide how much I go up. Since I'm also a 7100 shooter, you can rest assured that the low-light performance, i.e. its high ISO settings, perform VERY well, but I will personally only increase them when shooting hand-held and being in need of fast shutter speed. However, since I mostly shoot landscapes and cityscapes using a tripod, increasing the ISO or letting the camera decide for me would only work against me. Also, doing minute-long exposures will introduce noise to my images, and I don't want that.

Long story short, avoid auto-ISO. I'm no pro, but I've read a zillion books and have never seen a landscape shooter advocating its use. It would just cause frustration, IMO. I hope this post makes some sense. If not, please ask and I'll try to clarify. When I was a total beginner (which I still am) and asked simple questions, I often got answers fully loaded with technicality and jargon, and that only served to add to my confusion. Maybe it was just me, but I do like it when people try to simplify matters when offering their valuable advice.

Murat

[Brownbear]

Hi Susan,

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I've studied the exposure triangle and I also have a couple of great books (Michael Freeman) that I refer to frequently. I still mix up the terminology, now and then but yes, I mean a larger aperture say F4 (smaller number) allows more light through a larger size opening, and a smaller aperture means less light but is a larger number say F32.

When I photograph birds in flight in manual mode I can see the relationship between aperture, SS and ISO easily as I adjust each variable to suit the scene.

For some reason, even though I know that Aperture Priority and Shutter priority set the proper exposure based on the chosen aperture and shutter speed to expose for the scene, for some reason the fact that that the ISO I chose in shutter speed or aperture priority, could effect the shutter speed or aperture didn't sink in until Grahame mentioned choosing a lower iso in aperture priority for the silky water effect may allow for a slower shutter speed in aperture priority. Which is silly because I'm very aware of the role of ISO in exposure.

Just playing around with the SS and Aperture priority buttons last night, with my camera set at different ISOs in both modes showed me this, albeit the changes are all dependent on the scene at hand.

Thank you.

Christina - You are correct in that ISO, shutter speed and aperture are related and interdependent on each other. Have you studied the exposure triangle? In your example of Shutter speed priority... Higher ISO means more sensitivity to light, causing the aperture to close down or be smaller. When you are talking about smaller and larger aperture - you are talking about the actual size of the opening, right? (As opposed to the f number.)

[Brownbear]

I am not a fan of silky water. To me Loose Canon's 1st shot is easily the best as it shows movement. There was also an excellent shot of a Welsh stream in flood in a recent competition - hardly and votes at all. To set a camera to take that in one shot would be a fair old challenge.

Me - not much done on waterfalls. I did take a couple of shots of this one. Composition problems and I wouldn't slikyfy it. Not happy with the processing either. Done on my original monitor It looked ok on that and really needs reworking at a smaller size too.


Hi John,

Thank you for sharing a beautiful scene and a helpful and informative reply... Appreciated.

Think a bit more on P mode is needed. It isn't an auto mode really. Without changes it sets aperture and speeds according to some rules that the camera manufacturer has come up with. The important thing to realise is that the exposure is correct and will remain correct as the control wheel is turned. Many manuals suggest it should be used for snap shots - fleeting moments when there isn't time to worry about camera settings. On the other hand most cameras allow the base settings to be changed very quickly via one control. So say it came up with F8 at 1/125 secs and the user thought I want less depth of field than that. A quick turn of the wheel could change it to say F4 at 1/250 sec or even F2 at 1/500 sec. Equally the exposure could be shifted to F32 at about 1/30 sec. This effectively give aperture or speed priority with one wheel and if it wont reach the desired settings the ISO needs to be changed.. Say F2 at 1/500 sec has too shallow a depth of field for the action you want to freeze at 100 ISO if the camera was set to 400 the camera would offer F8 at 1/500 sec via the same control. In practice there is a need to find out what the camera does when something like that is changed - easy point it out of the window and find out. Stops, speeds and ISO all relate to each other with a factor of 2 = 1 stop.

Given the partly useless viewfinders in cameras these days that rely heavily on auto focus P mode has another use. Say some one is not sure that F8 at 1/125 will give the desired depth of field. It's easy to simply take another shot without even removing the camera from the eye at F16 or F4 etc. Later when people view the shots they can see the effect and soon get an idea what settings a given situation is likely to require. The same applies to freezing motion. If they never learn well just carry on taking multiple shots. In the extreme freezing motion needs something else as well - panning the camera or a one touch zoom if the object is approaching the camera.

When using P mode or any other mode really some cameras might show a hand or something similar when slow shutter speeds are selected. Take no notice and shoot just to see how steady you can be in practice. Stance and where the arms rest comes into this and just like precision shooting it's probably best to take the shot at the top of an in breath making sure you are well oxygenated. Crouching can help too or even making use of a nearby seat if something is available. I hate tripods but at some point they have to be used.

As far as silky water goes as indicated earlier neutral density filters are likely to be needed - probably several of them for all circumstances and several shots wouldn't be bad idea either. There is a type of polarising filter that can be used as an ND filter. Something I want to look into actually as there may be further effects on digital cameras. Basically these filter consist of 2 linear rather than circular polariser and as one is rotated against the other the amount of ND they give varies.

John
-

[Brownbear]

Hi Murat,

Thank you for sharing. Very informative and helpful. I admire your landscape images, a lot, so truly nice to know. And yes, simple is nice because it is very easy to get confused by all the technical jargon.

Christina,

My rule of thumb regarding ISO is - if I am shooting on a tripod, which is what I do 99% of the time - keep it at 100, and *never* set it to auto whether I am on a tripod or not. When shooting aperture priority, it is understandable (and often right) to let the camera handle some of the settings while you're the boss about the aperture, the opening on your lens, and you can focus on other details like composition, angle, etc. If you set your ISO to auto, you're basically handing over the control to your camera and it will act as it pleases , especially in low light conditions. That may work against you in more than one way. For example, you will need a longer shutter speed, usually a few seconds, but the auto-ISO function may simply increase the light sensitity to something like 1/8 of a second, and thus create a murky, uninteresting image as far as getting silky smooth water movement is concerned.

Even when shooting in the dark and needing a fast shutter speed, I will manually increase ISO because *I* want to decide how much I go up. Since I'm also a 7100 shooter, you can rest assured that the low-light performance, i.e. its high ISO settings, perform VERY well, but I will personally only increase them when shooting hand-held and being in need of fast shutter speed. However, since I mostly shoot landscapes and cityscapes using a tripod, increasing the ISO or letting the camera decide for me would only work against me. Also, doing minute-long exposures will introduce noise to my images, and I don't want that.

Long story short, avoid auto-ISO. I'm no pro, but I've read a zillion books and have never seen a landscape shooter advocating its use. It would just cause frustration, IMO. I hope this post makes some sense. If not, please ask and I'll try to clarify. When I was a total beginner (which I still am) and asked simple questions, I often got answers fully loaded with technicality and jargon, and that only served to add to my confusion. Maybe it was just me, but I do like it when people try to simplify matters when offering their valuable advice.

Murat

[Polar01]

Murat besides liking your sense of reality, you also shoot and think about it like me. Maybe a long lost brother?

Cheers:

Allan

[batmura]

Hi Christina, I would start with f/11 and see if you like the result. At f/8 you will still get excellent dof and clarity. You can go up to f/16 if you're shooting under bright light or if you want twice as long an exposure as f/11 or 4 times the exposure of f/8. That said, most images I've posted here were shot at f/8 or f/11 because I feel my lenses are at their sharpest at these settings. I found out by shooting the same scenes using different aperture. Also, I don't think you should go over f/22 unless you really have to.

[Manfred M]

That's a great tip, guys, about using continuous mode when using automated bracketing. However, I looked up the information about that in the manual for Christina's and my camera and there is a wrinkle, albeit a small wrinkle: "If the camera is turned off before all shots in the bracketing sequence have been taken, bracketing will resume from the next shot in the sequence when the camera is turned on."

On the other hand, I find it challanging to turn off the camera while I have the shutter release pressed (as I use my right index finger for both). When bracketing I run through the series of shots, so this issue has never come up for me.

The only thing I really don't like about the way Nikon has implemented this is that I don't have any control over the bracketing increment. As as example, I have to live with incrementing exposure of each shot by 1EV; I would prefer to set it two two or even three, but can't.

Minor issue usually and I can delete the intermediate values that I don't want.

[rtbaum]

Hi Christina,

If you may, please allow me to request Randy some sample water fountain/falls photos with EXIF for our enlightenment/study.

Randy, if you have time, please post some water fountain/falls photos with exif. It will greatly help our study if you can.

Thanks

Victor

I pulled this up from Oct 2010, Cascade Falls State Park, Lutsen, Mn.

Nikon D90
Tamron 18-270 @ 73mm
ISO 100
f/9.0
1.6 sec
ND10 filter (and, I think CP)
assorted tweaks in Lightroom and CS4

[Manfred M]

Christina,

My rule of thumb regarding ISO is - if I am shooting on a tripod, which is what I do 99% of the time - keep it at 100, and *never* set it to auto whether I am on a tripod or not.

Murat - we are in total agreement here. When I got my cameras, the first thing I did was switched off the auto-ISO, and when I shoot anything, my workflow has me manually setting the ISO and my philosophy is to chose as low a value as I can get away with. Coming from many years (decades really) of shooting film, I guess I am used to shooting at fixed ISO so this is something that comes naturally to me.

I have discussed auto-ISO with a number of photographers on this forum (and others) and fully understand why someone might choose to let the ISO vary. I rarely, if ever shoot in situations where the light is varying so quickly that I would consider doing so. I have shot with auto-ISO, but for some reason, I've never been a fan.

I tend to reach for a tripod or look at adding additional light to the scene. Adding light is something that comes from my vidoe shooting experience, where increasing the gain (which is the same thing as increasing ISO) does result in loss of image quality.

My standard workflow is as follows:

1. Select the working ISO;

2. Determine which shooting mode to use. Most of my shots are aperture priority (as I am looking for specific DoF), I will switch to shutter priiority when I am shooting motion (like moving water) and will determine if I want motion to blur or to freeze it. I will also switch to manual when I am doing some very specific shots - panos or strobes are two types if shooting I will do on manaul 100% of the time; these are instances where I don't want the camera changing any of my settings.

3. Adjust the last variable; whether than be shutter speed or aperture, either automatically or if the scene is not "average enough", I will override using exposure compensation.