Water blur

T

thequeenscheese

Senior Member
I've tried a couple of times to capture some water blur/motion and it always seems the highlights are blown out with an almost white image, is it as simple as nd filters etc, or am i missing a trick?, Anywhere from 1second seems to struggle.

kit D5300 tamron 18-270 62mm

I was out with the neighbor yesterday and hes got a Sony mirror-less (newish model) which has an inbuilt setting for this and does a very good job taking around 2 - 256 pics give or take then blending them in camera without needing an nd filter, i canr see a relevant setting on the D5300 so im guessing its an ND filter required around no.8? any other tricks and tips?

cheers..
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
thequeenscheese said:
I've tried a couple of times to capture some water blur/motion and it always seems the highlights are blown out with an almost white image, is it as simple as nd filters etc, or am i missing a trick?, Anywhere from 1second seems to struggle...
Click to expand...
No real "trick" to getting good results with this technique; it's more hard work, experience and experimentation (usually) to find the right degree of blur, or softness, you want in the waters flow without exposure clipping. An ND filter is typically necessary to give you the degree of control required to get the right exposure.
 
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B

Blacktop

Senior Member
thequeenscheese said:
I've tried a couple of times to capture some water blur/motion and it always seems the highlights are blown out with an almost white image, is it as simple as nd filters etc, or am i missing a trick?, Anywhere from 1second seems to struggle.

kit D5300 tamron 18-270 62mm

I was out with the neighbor yesterday and hes got a Sony mirror-less (newish model) which has an inbuilt setting for this and does a very good job taking around 2 - 256 pics give or take then blending them in camera without needing an nd filter, i canr see a relevant setting on the D5300 so im guessing its an ND filter required around no.8? any other tricks and tips?

cheers..
Click to expand...

It all depends on light. The less light there is, the longer your shutter speed will be, which is what you want shooting flowing water. You can either do this when the the light is low or with an ND filter when there is plenty of light.

You can start by lowering your ISO to the lowest native setting. (usually ISO 100) then stopping down on aperture to F/11- f/16. If this doesn't give you a low enough shutterspeed then you may need an ND filter.

Also slower flowing water doesn't need as low of a shutter speed then a faster moving water.
 
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