The texture of water

Last week Sean and I were out for a drive to explore some countryside south and west of Calgary. We found some roads new to us, and stopped to explore a few times. It's always nice to visit with a buddy, and even better when cameras are involved. 

Yet somehow, most of my images are 'there I was and this is what I saw'. Lots of nice reflections, but not reflections of anything more interesting than cottonwood trees. We spent some time looking at a little stream, Sean working on an image of the stream curving between small trees, and me working on some rocks in the middle of the stream. I don't know how his turned out.

I'm often fascinated by how water moves over the stream bed and how light reflects off of it. This is one case where our brains see the world very differently than a camera does. I've had a few successful photos of water, but not many. The hit rate is marginally better than chasing bees or dragonflies. Which, as a note to self, I haven't yet done this year.

It's quite straightforward to take a photo of motionless water. A fast shutter speed (at least 1/1000 of a second) captures drops of water in mid splash. Under some circumstances you can even capture a selfie reflection in a drop. But that isn't how we see water. 

Slowing the shutter speed way down, leaving it open for multiple seconds, and using a neutral density filter, can turn a clear mountain stream into milk, and while that might be an interesting artistic choice, it doesn't look quite right either. 

Somewhere in between, then seems to be the ticket to give the impression of motion. Let's just say there's a lot of possible speeds between those two extremes. Then there's all the variables of exactly how much light is falling on the water, what's in the water itself, what the stream bed is made of, how fast the water is moving, if you have a tripod or neutral density filter, and probably more factors that don't come to mind at the moment.

In fact I had a tripod and filter available, but they were in the car. I was in the mood to try hand held, experimenting with camera settings to see what it looked like. I figured I could get the additional equipment if it seemed worth it.

For camera nerds, this is ISO 100, f16, 1/8, using a 70-200 lens hand held. There's a trick to making such a slow shutter work hand held.

I'm really pleased at how that turned out. I was considering the idea of setting up the tripod and trying the same shot using the GW690, but then the bugs found us. Even with repellant on they were getting the best of me anyway. Getting a better version of this photo would mean setting up the tripod, getting a filter on, and playing with settings again, then doing it again for film if desired, all as movement of the sun and clouds changes the lighting. Fighting off bugs totally takes you out of the zone. 

Of the Day

Driftwood, but first a double serendipity! A skyline shot from the west late 2016.

Near Lyttleton, New Zealand shot early Feb 2019.

And the long standing driftwood feature.

Flower

Peony

I have to admit when I look at these, I think of the helmets worn by the weapons techs on the Death Star firing the super laser.

Landscape

I suppose the serendipity shot above is a landscape, but wanted to give you another one. 

Film, Fish Creek, GW690 Ektar 100.