Moving Water / Silk effect

[sheepie]

OK - this is in part carried on from another thread, but is an interesting subject on it's own.

Frequently, you will see water pictures with a silky effect - how is this done?

Put simply, it is a slower shutter speed than would otherwise be used in the situation.

How do you do this?

By perhaps using a combination of high F-number, and long shutter speed - you may also want to try Neutral Density filters. Overexposing (or pulling) the picture is also an option.

I now throw this open to any other input.

[Nnnnsic]

I'm not entirely sure I understand what ya'll mean by "silky effect."

[Matt. K]

For an interesting effect, try jiggling the camera in time with the ripples.......No no I wasn't serious!
Sheepie, why haven't you gone to bed?

[stubbsy]

I'm not entirely sure I understand what ya'll mean by "silky effect."

Leigh

Like darb has done in this post

[Onyx]

I bought an ND4 filter for just this very reason, perceiving the ISO200 minimum on the D70 to be a limiting factor for waterfall photography.

In practice, I have found that a relatively UNslow shutter speed is required for that 'silky' effect. Given that gravity is 9.8m^-2, I'm finding typically 1/10th or 1/15th of a second is doable, and at my limits of handholdability. Of course, I still bracket the hell out of any scenes encoutered, for finding the optimum shutter speed/blur effect and to counter camera shake due to handholding.

[dooda]

The only way of doing this outside of photoshop is with long shutter speeds. CPL's and ND filters as well as small APT is simply a way to manipulate the camera in giving you slow shutter speeds. there is no other way.