LotusImaging

Waterfall. Olympus E-3 14mm ISO 100 1/10sec f14 Shutter Priority

There is a shooting technique to get water to appear foamy and giving the effect of water movement as opposed to freezing it as the photo above shows. The secret involves in taking control of your camera’s shutter speed. The easiest way is to put your camera mode to shutter priority.

Varying your camera’s shutter speed will give you different effects. For this technique to work, you will definitely need a good tripod, and in some cases, filters to block out more light coming into your camera’s sensor. The above photo was taken hand-held. Olympus built-in body image stabilizer helps to a certain extent but in this case, 1/10sec is my absolute limit without any kind of support.

The effects of varying your shutter speed is displayed in the following photos:-

Freezing the water movement. Olympus E-3 14mm ISO 100 1/250sec f2.8 Shutter Priority

At a rather fast shutter speed of 1/250sec, the water movement is frozen in time. You may even get a faster shutter speed by increasing your ISO speed setting to 200 or even 400.

Foam creation. Olympus E-3 14mm ISO 100 1/8sec f14 Shutter Priority

Dialing the shutter speed down to a slow 1/8sec, the water will start to get foamy. Note that at this speed, the aperture has been adjusted down to f14 to get the correct exposure.

Foam Creation Limit. Olympus E-3 ISO 100 f1/2sec f22 Shutter Priority

I reached the camera’s limit when I dialed down the shutter speed to 1/2sec as the aperture is now down to f22, which is the limit for Olympus 4/3 system.

You may reached a different limit depending on the scene’s lighting. You may even get another stop or two by using a filter or simply wait for the light to change.

All shots taken with Olympus E-3 with 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 lens, hand-held. I brought my tripod along, but didn’t use it as there are a lot of support around which can be used to steady the camera. Happy shooting.

( photography , tips ) ( Photography )