I went up to the mountains in the north of town this afternoon and had a few hours of fun shooting one of our many rivers and some of its small waterfalls. I hadn't intended to get into the water, but while moving around I slipped and one leg went into the water halfway up my calf. The water wasn't unbearably cold and I figured "in for a penny, in for a pound" and decided I may as well stick the other leg in while I was at it.

Since I was already wet I thought I would try out an idea I had last year but never got around to trying out. I wondered how it would be to shoot such a scene with the camera just a few centimeters above the surface of the water. So I set my tripod up in water above my knees and tried a few shots. Here is a shot of the setup, taken with my cell phone and with no PP:

Yes, I'm an idiot.

[RBellavance]

I went in the water (both the ocean and the sea) with my K10D several times during my last vacation in the Riviera Maya. One of my favorite recent pictures was taken with the camera about 6 inches above the water, while I was standing about chest-deep in the pool:



I've never set a tripod in the water, however.

[Rense]

Not having access to a humongous crane and also having forgotten, as usual, to pack enough dynamite in my camera bag I was sort of stuck with having the rock where it was.

Lesson 1: allways - ALWAYS - bring your dynamite.
Tip/Trick 1: in case of emergency, you can use it also as flashlight!

[daacon]

Well done my friend - I have not set up a tripod but have taken my K10 into the ocean and squated down for a low angle water shot. A tripod will be my next attempt and great idea on a change of clothes Peter.

[metroeloise]

Woot-woot for all those shots!

And thanks again all for the encouragement and inspiration... Just in time for summer. Maybe I'll have even saved up for a da* lens by its end and then these shots will be safer yet...

[stevebrot]

I am late to this thread, but figured that I might as well chime in...

You've got guts Mike! I like the results though. Real nice photo that would not have been otherwise possible.

I have shot with my tripod legs in the stream before, but was always concerned about vibration from the movement of the water around the legs. The last time I tried it, I could feel the tripod taking on a harmonic "hum" from the current. I guess I should stick with the eddies.

Steve

BTW...is that travel tripod a Slik Sprint Pro by any chance?

[Mike Cash]

BTW...is that travel tripod a Slik Sprint Pro by any chance?

In lovely gunmetal finish, yes.

Here's another shot...a very poor one...from that trip:

It seems all the best areas for photographing rivers around here are always down steep slopes that are pretty inaccessible from the road. So recently I collected up some spare rope at work, spliced together a couple long enough for my purposes, and threw them in the back of my car. I tied overhand knots into this rope about every 50cm for help gripping and then tied it around the truck of a tree in the loop of a simple bowline knot. I'm sure a lot of you may wonder why on earth anyone would need assistance for a simple slope like that, but I'm a middle-aged overweight guy with high blood pressure and poor muscle tone; I need all the help I can get.

Anyway, the ground there is very loosely packed, with several years worth of decayed pine needles and leaves, and we had just had a rain the day before...the angle afforded by the rope gave my boots more pressure and gription on the ground. The few steps I tried without it indicated it was going to be a quick process of sliding down the crumbling surface and a slow process of wondering how the hell I was going to get back up.

I packed a couple of camera bodies and lenses into a waist bag and slid one leg of the tripod under the strap. Before I started down I stood at my car and double-checked in my mind that I had placed in the bag everything I would need. At the top of the slope I double-checked in my mind.

At the bottom of the slope I realized I had left the smallest, cheapest, and most significant item in the car: a simple 49-58mm step-up ring for my filters.

Pentax K20D
SMC Takumar 50/1.4
ND8 & Linear Polarizer
ISO100 / 8sec @ f16

[nanok]

i could have told you that, mike: the best way to save time is to get to the bottom of the sloape (stairs, bus stop, whatever) to figure out what you forgot, trying to remember before it's too late will always fail (as there will always be something you forgot and you need). stands to reason, really .

i never went in that deep, but i do regularly get my boots wet for landscape/waterfall shots, not long ago, during a flood in one of my favourite locations of late, the water current was so strong i had to pull out the tripod from the water (it was vibrating way beyond any chance of getting a sharp shot), and instead set it up in a very dangerous acrobatic position, each leg on one wet rock (don't ask where i was standing, i can't figure it out now that i remember..).

i also often shoot from very close to the water level, but i am seriously thinking of getting rubber boots, or maybe a neoprene suit (yeah!), to give me access to so many shots i missed because the water was too deep. haven't thought of strategically slipping on a rock, getting wet, so that it doesn't matter anymore and i can shoot in deep water (might save a buck or two on equipment), so thanks mike for the innovative idea

i like this last shot a lot, the concept and composition, though i feel the rocks might be just a bit too dark for my taste (some people might state they never thought they'd live to see the day i say anything in a picture to be "too dark for my taste" )

tnt: what do you mean? never leave home without it! it also has the added benefit of enabling you to render your shots unique for eternity (literally: what you shoot is dust after you're done), not to mention the increase in value which is likely for each shot (read: post mortem artwork always sells better, well known fact, that is). for "real men", i recommend nytroglycerin, cheaper, and gets the job done faster (just don't sneaze..)

[Jonson PL]

Wow, great shots.
I brought my K10 out in the waves in Malaysia. I'll see if I can dig up some shots

Great experiment and lovely shots Mike, well except for one.
Next phase of the experiment should be to take a small fish tank with you so you can get below the water line.

[jbrowning]

My hat is off to you Mike, I'm not sure if I would feel comfortable leaving my camera and tripod in a river/stream without me holding it. But I do like your results. I might have to suck it up and try some shots from just above the water level.

Jim

[Mike Cash]

Great experiment and lovely shots Mike, well except for one.
Next phase of the experiment should be to take a small fish tank with you so you can get below the water line.

Now that is one hell of an idea!!!

I was able to use LiveView for framing and focusing on these slow-shutter shots without having to remove the filters. Being able to zoom in with LiveView makes it really easy to hit the focus point right where you want it. I don't think I'd be able to do that with a fish tank, though. Maybe I could place a small mirror at 45 degrees right behind the screen. And figuring out a way to attach it to a tripod would be another issue.

Regarding some other points raised in the thread:

Removing my hands from the tripod was actually the safest way of doing this. As you can imagine, some of the rocks on the bottom are slippery and it was impossible to look down and make sure of my footing in many places. I didn't so much walk or wade through the water as I did very slowly and very carefully move and plant one foot at a time, making very sure of how secure it was before shifting my weight to it and doing the same for the other foot. I probably looked like an old woman, but I used a trekking pole to help the process and I unabashedly held onto boulders on the side....anything at all to ensure I wouldn't slip. Where possible I laid the camera/tripod combo on the rocks, did my movement, then moved the camera again. Where that wasn't possible I securely placed the tripod on the river bottom, did my old woman walk, then moved the tripod again. That way I had both hands free for steadying myself and removed the danger of slipping into the water and dropping the camera.

Moving around on the rocks and boulders was a similar process. Each step was deliberate and with an eye toward reducing equipment damage I took far more trouble and steps than was probably actually necessary. I ended up spending three hours down there and was amazed at how swiftly the time passed. My first clue was when my wet pants started to feel a bit chilly and when the light dropped enough I had to go from 10 second exposures to 15 seconds. I slipped into the water of another river in that area back in January or February, and I quickly dropped what I was doing and got my butt back to the car.

Pentax K20D
Lens Baby 2.0
1/125 @ f4

[Sailor]

I've never tried the tripod trick, but I have hand held some close-to-the-water shots by leaning against the leeward life lines. It can get pretty soggy under these conditions, but I've gotten by with it thus far.

Jer

[er1kksen]

I've never done so with a tripod but I've been known to place the camera on a flat rock that's just above the surface of the water for some nice long-exposures... stable base and interesting perspective all in one.

[axl]

can we se the resulting shots?

[nirudha]