[interested_observer]

I came across this and found it very interesting. The Effect of Shutter Speed on the Appearance of Flowing Water. Swipe your mouse slowly across the images to see the effects of shutter speed.

• Jeffrey Friedl's Blog » The Effect of Shutter Speed on the Appearance of Flowing Water

[K2 to K50]

I came across this and found it very interesting. The Effect of Shutter Speed on the Appearance of Flowing Water. Swipe your mouse slowly across the images to see the effects of shutter speed.

• Jeffrey Friedl's Blog » The Effect of Shutter Speed on the Appearance of Flowing Water

What an interesting test series - and thanks very much for making the results accessible!

[Rondec]

I guess I like something in the middle -- not seconds long exposure, but not too fast an exposure either -- somewhere between 1/10 and 1 second seems to give a nice effect.

[robgski]

Very informative, thanks for sharing!

[JensE]

Really depends on the scene, whenever go through the hassle of putting up a tripod, I take multiple exposures with different duration. An interesting experiment is also to use interval-composite and 'record process'. The composite has a bit more roughness then a continuous ND-filtered one, but you can easily study which one you like best ...

[Pentax Syntax]

Very interesting analysis. I find the intermediate results most compelling. My perception of streams and waterfalls is not as a blur of water but as a series of discrete snapshots. There is no doubt that the long exposures have artistic merit when the intention is there.

[Viking42]

That is interesting, and well done. Clever of him to make it work with a mouse sweep.

I shoot a lot of moving water, and find I prefer about 1 sec for a fast moving stream with little cascades (like in his blog); 1/4 to 1/2 sec. or so for a proper waterfall where the velocity is higher; and maybe 3 to 5 sec. for a slower moving stream or river. I like to have a little bit of definition and separation of the flow patterns so that it looks like it has some motion. Personally I find the misty-silky looking very long exposure shots of water to be overdone and affected looking....not my thing. The occasional monochrome image from the seaside seems to pull it off, but otherwise meh...

Thanks for posting that.

[Michail_P]

Very interesting !

[Jonathan Mac]

Helpful but stops well short of the upper end of what's useful. For flowing water on a waterfall you can catch it without any blur (freeze individual drops etc) from around 1/1600s, which is a less trodden road for such pictures.

[pentaxus]

I like the extremes. The Jonathan Mac droplet stopping or the long smooth shots.

[normhead]

Really depends on the scene, whenever go through the hassle of putting up a tripod, I take multiple exposures with different duration. An interesting experiment is also to use interval-composite and 'record process'. The composite has a bit more roughness then a continuous ND-filtered one, but you can easily study which one you like best ...

Exactly. I don't find this useful at all. Because of two things. Over time I have found that I need to take multiple exposures with different shutter speeds. I never know in advance which I'll like. This article doesn't change that. It tells you waht you get in this scene, and let you judge for this scene.

There is no one shutter time that suits every scene.

So for people who don't use this technique I guess it would impress, but I see the same things every time I process a waterfall image. So it's kind of ho-hum. In my experience, deciding on what shutter speed is best can only be done in post processing.

The bein said, experience has taught me, I'm probably going to like 1/6 to 1/8 second. But there are quite a few exceptions. Enough to make it worthwhile to continue bracketing. The advantage to 1/6 to 1/8 being, IBIS can handle it, you don't need a tripod shooting on the fly. The image below taken on walk with two other people who wouldn't have enjoyed waiting or me to do a lot of fuzting.

Should some busy body look over my shoulder and say "you should have used a longer (or shorter) shutter speed, I can of course come back with, I did, this one was more to my liking.


It sometimes amazes me with the miniscule cost of capturing an image these days, how many people don't do for 2 cents with digital what I used to do for 25 cents with film. Five exposure brakes costs me a dime. With film, at least a dollar and a quarter.

[stevebrot]

Thanks for sharing!

As noted above, much depends on how the water is flowing and the intended effect. I do a lot with tumbling streams and generally shoot at 1/8s to 1/15s to maintain texture while giving a sense of well, tumbling!

1/8s




1/10s




Steve

[StiffLegged]

... I do a lot with tumbling streams and generally shoot at 1/8s to 1/15s to maintain texture while giving a sense of well, tumbling!

I like that first image a lot, Steve!

[Apet-Sure]

Back in my film days I remember seeing a shot in a Kodak book of a model sitting in a short waterfall. IIRC she was wearing a yellow outfit. The shot was taken using a tri-colored filter dropped in front of the lens during the exposure. (Visualize a vertical rectangle with three equally sized square colored panels.) Since she was sitting still, the three colors (assume R,G,B) added together to render her in natural colors. The moving water however had red, green, and blue highlights. Very cool effect.

[DeadJohn]

That website uses an interesting presentation with the mouse-over to show different speeds.

At least 3 people have already said it depends on the scene. I'll add myself to that. Many waterfalls I've visited (mostly USA northeast) have trees and bushes near the falls, and overly long exposures give blurred leaves if there's any breeze. I usually prefer medium speeds, not freezing the water, and not blurring things so much that the water just looks like fog.


Here's an extreme case where 1/1000 still gave a good amount of blur at the base of a giant waterfall (Niagara American Falls).