River rapids

[Jill]

Hi,
My first time at this trying to work through the minefield of instructions.
I would like honest, even severe critique.
ISO 100, focal length 27.mm, Exposure 1/8 sec at F 6.3
I was trying out a new ND 8 filter to explore the silky water which I have admired.
This was taken early in the morning, thus the golden light coming into the picture.
I feel there needs to be a balance between the sharp rocks and the soft water. Not sure if I have achieved this.
Thanks Jill

[Manfred M]

Hi Jill - Welcome to CiC. It does look like your post worked.

I suspect that some members may not like the silky smoothness that you do, but on the other hand I try to do these images from time to time, with varying degress of success. It looks like the slow shutter speed worked. The 8-stop ND looks like it might have been a bit of overkill as you were shooting at f/6.3; I can't tell whether everything is in focus or not, because of the size of the image, but with the focal length you used on your DMC-FZ200, things might be a bit soft. The camera has a small 1/2.3" sensor, but 165mm FF equivilent focal length, I suspect that there might be a bit of overall softness in the some of the detail.

From a composition standpoint, I find these shots a bit tricky to do. Our eyes are drawn to the highlight areas, and here this is the water on the very left side of the image, which means we are looking at the left and to a lesser extent, the bottom edge of the image. In most shots, the viewer's eyes should be drawn towards the centre of the shot and away from the edges, so next time you shoot this type of a scene, look at alternative shooting angles that use the highlights to do this.

If it were my shot, I might be tempted to crop off a bit of the top and right (removing the rock at the top right corner from the image). The flowing water gives a great deal of abstraction, but I find the top edge confuses that a bit.

You asked for super-critical, so there you go.

Had you just asked for comments, I probably would have stuck with "great shot!".

[Jill]

Manfred,
Thanks for the feedback, that is exactly what I wanted, I felt the composition wasn't right but not sure why. I had a quick look at your website.
wow. I see you have been to Bhutan, we went in Sept-Oct, I noticed you had fog-just right at Tigers Nest. Did you put that in or was it natural?
Jill

[Stagecoach]

Hi Jill, and welcome to CiC.

For your first try you have done very well. I have no problems with the 'silky' water look and do a few myself.

Some ideas if you have another go;

a) Try to get a decent amount of rock, preferably with some of it's surface that is dry in the foreground area at least to one side. Careful because this can mean getting low and close.

b) Use a smaller aperture to get greater DOFf and ensure sharpness throughout.

c) Take the opportunity to take a few at different speeds whilst you have the chance.

Oh, and lastly post at a larger size (1200 to 1400px wide) so we can appreciate this good pic more

Grahame

[IzzieK]

Jill...not a fan of slow shutter on water shot but good for you to post. +1 to Manfred's comments above.

[Shadowman]

I'll try anything once and like you I tried the silky water effect, nice if you have another subject (such as a figure) within the composition; a bit bland (for my taste) if there is nothing but rocks and waves.

[Manfred M]

Manfred,
Thanks for the feedback, that is exactly what I wanted, I felt the composition wasn't right but not sure why. I had a quick look at your website.
wow. I see you have been to Bhutan, we went in Sept-Oct, I noticed you had fog-just right at Tigers Nest. Did you put that in or was it natural?
Jill

Thanks Jill - The clouds at the Tiger's Nest are 100% real. When we set of in the morning, the whole area was cloudy, and when we got to an opening where we could see the monastery about 1/2 way up the clouds had started to break up. I took about 20 different shots and this the one that came out best, by far. A little luck helps. By the time we got to the top observation point, just before the final push to the monatery, the clouds had disappeared completely.

Sometimes luck plays a major part in getting the image, and of course recognizing what happens and actually taking the pictures at that time (a.k.a. "working the scene") helps too.

[Loose Canon]

Hi Jill! Welcome aboard! Good to have you here.

It never fails! Post a shot of moving water that you have dragged the shutter on and the I-Like-Silky-Water/Hate-Silky-Water comments start flying!

I’d like to say that these comments are completely and utterly irrelevant to what you are doing.

I am taking it that this is your first time out using this technique for a silky flowing water effect. What is relevant is that you tried to do this, figured out how it was done, and most importantly understand (I hope) why it happens.

This is going to lay the foundation for the future when you want/don’t want to show some motion in other types of shots/environments. As well as give you a better overall understanding of your camera, filters, settings, and of course light.

So, composition notwithstanding, I’m going to say you did a great job here.

As far as composition goes, and without knowing what was really in front of your lens, and from what I can see? I would say that some interest may have been added if you could have included more of the “drop” (small waterfall) on the left side of the frame even if at the expense of the run-in to the drop. Maybe even included some of the run-out below that little drop making the drop the primary element.

But hard telling not knowing what was there! So a good thing to do here, if you didn’t already, is to “work the scene”. You know, shoot different points of view, angles, different shutter times/apertures, etc. then get that all back home and loaded to your computer and evaluate what you did. Then decide what works for you.

With that filter you probably could have decreased the shutter speed by stopping down your aperture such that the moving water would have been pure cotton candy! And again, whether anyone likes it or not is not the point. The point is that you did it, saw what happens with the effect, and decide what you like.

[Wavelength]

Nice one; good colors

[Jill]

Hi Jill, and welcome to CiC.

For your first try you have done very well. I have no problems with the 'silky' water look and do a few myself.

Some ideas if you have another go;

a) Try to get a decent amount of rock, preferably with some of it's surface that is dry in the foreground area at least to one side. Careful because this can mean getting low and close.

b) Use a smaller aperture to get greater DOFf and ensure sharpness throughout.

c) Take the opportunity to take a few at different speeds whilst you have the chance.

Oh, and lastly post at a larger size (1200 to 1400px wide) so we can appreciate this good pic more

Grahame

Grahame
Thanks for the thought and comments you have given me. Most helpful.
I have been playing with these water shots, often something wrong but can't put my finger on it. I think more rock is needed as you say.
I notice you do macro, I have been playing with these also, again I find it more difficult to get good composition with macro shots. Such a lot to thinks of.
Thanks Jill

[Jill]

Grahame,
Thanks for the thought and comments you have put into your reply.
It is most helpful.
I see you do macro, I have been playing with macro also, blending layers, can be very tedious but I revisit it now and then.
Thanks again
Jill

[Jill]

Terry,
Thanks for the comments, very helpful. Just what I needed.
Jill

[Jill]

Wow, thanks everyone, comments most helpful.
I feel like I have been photographing in a void, comments like "That's nice"
These comments give me something to work on.

I didn't realize I was opening a love/hate debate on soft water. I can't imaging anyone not liking the soft water look although I can imagine it being overdone. I will watch that.

Thanks again all who commented.
Jill

[Loose Canon]

I didn't realize I was opening a love/hate debate on soft water. I can't imaging anyone not liking the soft water look although I can imagine it being overdone. I will watch that.

I’d like to say that these comments are completely and utterly irrelevant to what you are doing.

[Manfred M]

I didn't realize I was opening a love/hate debate on soft water. I can't imaging anyone not liking the soft water look although I can imagine it being overdone. I will watch that.

There is an ongoing (and sometimes heated) debate going on in the photographic community as how to best represent flowing water in an image. I think part of the problem is that some people have really gone over the top with the representation of moving water and have smoothed it out so much that it looks rather unearthly. So the moment this is done "on purpose", the comments come out.

I'm 100% in agreement with Terry (Loose Canon) when he says "I’d like to say that these comments are completely and utterly irrelevant to what you are doing." Your image, your taste, and really nothing else matters.

Now that being said, had you said that this was an early morning shot, just before sunrise and the blur was entirely due to low light, I suspect nobody would have said anything. It almost seems that shooting through the heavy duty 8 or 10-stop ND filter is the root of the "sin"; had you shot at f/22 you would have gotten smoother water without resorting the filter and that could have been fine?

I posted the following shot about last May or June, and I didn't hear squat about silky looking water. I could have opened the aperture setting up around 2/3 of a stop (argument against; better image quality) or used a higher ISO (argument against - sensor noise).



I guess silky water is okay because this is a night shot.

[Jill]

Hi Jill, and welcome to CiC.

For your first try you have done very well. I have no problems with the 'silky' water look and do a few myself.

Some ideas if you have another go;

a) Try to get a decent amount of rock, preferably with some of it's surface that is dry in the foreground area at least to one side. Careful because this can mean getting low and close.

b) Use a smaller aperture to get greater DOFf and ensure sharpness throughout.

c) Take the opportunity to take a few at different speeds whilst you have the chance.

Oh, and lastly post at a larger size (1200 to 1400px wide) so we can appreciate this good pic more

Grahame

Grahame
i have submitted another picture and changed the dimension as you suggested, it was quite distorted. I didn't know how to delete the post so edited it. I had to go back to my 700 pixels. Any idea why this happened?
Thanks Jill

[Stagecoach]

Grahame
i have submitted another picture and changed the dimension as you suggested, it was quite distorted. I didn't know how to delete the post so edited it. I had to go back to my 700 pixels. Any idea why this happened?
Thanks Jill

Jill, when re-sizing did you ensure that you just adjusted the width and not the height as well?

[Benjy]

Well done Jill, like it...

[Jill]

Jill, when re-sizing did you ensure that you just adjusted the width and not the height as well?

Thanks Grahame,
I did it twice, the second time I only changed the width but thinking about it later I panicked and I may have needed to refresh.
Thanks, I will experiment when I stop panicking.