Blurry water effect !

Nikonja · Jul 25, 2005

Can someone help how to get that blurry efect when you take a picture of a moving water on a daylihgt because if i put my exposure to long the picture is too bright and if i put higher f i doesn't compesate the higher exposure. I hope that someone knows what am i talking about and can help me ! Is there anything else I have to be careful about beside exposure and lens aperture ?
Sorry if I mispronounced something because my english is not that good ! :wink:

Big Mike · Jul 25, 2005

Welcome to the forum.

You are on the right track...you need a long exposure to get that effect. The problem is that when you set the shutter to be open for a long time, you might need to close down the aperture to keep the image from becoming over exposed. There is a limit to how small you can stop down a lens...so once the lens is fully closed (F22 or F28 etc.) you have to find a way to limit the exposure to be able to use the long shutter times. As for how long the exposure needs to be...that depends. One second or longer should give you a nice effect.

First, use a low ISO (film or setting on digital camera). If that is not enough, the use if filters is the way people do it. ND or neutral density filters will block light but not change the color of the photo. They come in different strengths for different lighting situations. I also like to use a polarizer, it block about 1 stop of light and can also be used to limit reflections from the water.