Problem with shutter speed and lighting

[bfoale]

I was out the other day shooting a nice waterfall shot which was probably about 20 metres away. I had the light at 90 degrees of me and I wanted to try out slowing down the shutter speed to get the blurred effect however all I got at slowest shutter speed was basically white. What has this come down to and how can I rectify this in the future?

[Aussie Dave]

Hi bfoale
welcome to the forum.

When you say slowest shutter speed, how slow did you set it (30 seconds ?).

Depending on what shutter speed you choose to make the water seemed "blurred OR fluffy", you still need to set the appropriate aperture setting so the scene is exposed correctly.

Where you shooting in aperture priority, shutter priority or manual ?

If you can perhaps give more specifics, those of us on the forum can give you better answers.

[avkomp]

bfoale: hi and welcome to the forum
the all white you speak of sounds like overexposure
when you slowed the shutter speed down, did you just pick an arbitrary value?? or did you measure the light and set it??

you will find that the d70 has quite accurate metering. I would recomment using matrix metering to start with and stop the aperture down a long way and use the slowest ISO possible.
I usually set manual mode and adjust the shutter speed for correct exposure. I also set the camera to display highlights so I see any areas of overexposure blinking ( or use the histogram feature)
Waterfalls can be tricky things to shoot. The test ones showing water blur are often taken later in the day when the light isnt as bright, allowing for longer exposures without overexposure

If you try to do this in full sunlight, long exposures wont be possible,
A solution in this case would be thing called a neutral density filter, which basically reduces the amount of light let in the lens allowing for longer exposures.

Also I find that the amount of water flowing determines how long a shutter speed I need to use to achieve the desired milky effect I am after.
A large volume of water flowing sometimes looks unattractive with too long an exposure and would need shorter exposure.
This is where you take a few shots using different settings and pick the one which most pleases you.

hope this helps

Steve

[avkomp]

also, it will help if you include your location in your profile as per forum requirements.

steve

[gstark]

Welcome to our forum.

As Steve has already pointed out, you need to update your profile to include your location. I'd also suggest that you read the FAQ; it contains lots of useful information.

Okease tell us more about the image that you shot: what camera, and what settings did you emply, and under what shooting conditions.

The more you tell us, the better we'll be able to help you.