@illininutt wrote:I always wanted to take great waterfall pictures like I see in photp books but never wanted to go through "setting" the camera up or using a tripod. Can I do that with this simple filter? I look on Ebay and the price ranges fron $12 to $100!? Can anyone recomend a filter/place to buy and cost!? Thanks
In most cases, you will need a ND filter. Howver, if the water is moving very fast, you can get away with a handheld shot, and a shutter speed as slow as 1/4 second, but you would still need a tripod.
I forget the shutter speed on the above shot, but I didn't use a ND filter to get that look on the water. It is halfway between freezing the water splashing, and taking a long exposure to give it the frozen waterfall look.
@TCampbell wrote:Taking advantage of motion-blur is hardly a recent fad. I've seen images like this going back years.... taken with view cameras that required the use of film hangers, a dark slide, and a drape to go over the photographers head while they focus & frame the shot.
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I don't claim that the current fad has no historical precedent; I'm merely saying that I don't like it. Of course in the draped view camera era, film speeds were so slow that the photographers of the day had little choice in the matter. I grew up in the 40s and 50s when Edgerton and Killian's electronic flash was in vogue. The object then was to freeze drops of water in mid-flight, and I must have absorbed that attitude. (My dad had a copy of E&K's book, "Flash: Seeing the Unseen with Ultra-high-speed Photography", and I lapped it up. The pendulum has swung back the other way, I guess, but I've elected not to ride it.
Here's how I think a waterfall should be rendered. The picture is my wife's, not mine, but it makes the point. (She and I agree on most compositional issues.)
@RobertTheFat wrote:
@TCampbell wrote:Taking advantage of motion-blur is hardly a recent fad. I've seen images like this going back years.... taken with view cameras that required the use of film hangers, a dark slide, and a drape to go over the photographers head while they focus & frame the shot.
...
I don't claim that the current fad has no historical precedent; I'm merely saying that I don't like it. Of course in the draped view camera era, film speeds were so slow that the photographers of the day had little choice in the matter. I grew up in the 40s and 50s when Edgerton and Killian's electronic flash was in vogue. The object then was to freeze drops of water in mid-flight, and I must have absorbed that attitude. (My dad had a copy of E&K's book, "Flash: Seeing the Unseen with Ultra-high-speed Photography", and I lapped it up. The pendulum has swung back the other way, I guess, but I've elected not to ride it.
Here's how I think a waterfall should be rendered. The picture is my wife's, not mine, but it makes the point. (She and I agree on most compositional issues.)
That's a pretty nice shot. But, I have to ask. Does the waterfall really look like that to the naked eye? I would be inclined to think that the brain would try to integrate the falling sheets of water into a coherent image. I think this shot would have benefited nicely from a slower shutter speed.
The brain cannot discriminate successive events occurring less than 1/60 of a second, or even less than 1/30 of second, as any motion picture can quickly prove. I would be really curious to see what that would look like with a 1/60 shutter speed.
In my example, I slowed it down more than I realized. I was looking for less of the frozen over look, and more of the dynamic look that you have captured. I think my shutter was somewhere around 1/8 second, or so. I think 1/30 would have been more ideal.
