Noobie question - Shooting waterfalls

[Brian4all]

Most people like the creamy, silky look of falling water. To me, it looks too artificial. I prefer to freeze the water because I believe it has more of a natural look. I may be going out tomorrow to shoot some waterfalls, so I did some experimenting by turning on a fan (high speed) and shooting it. I also took a picture of water coming out of the faucet. The settings that I tried were auto, sports, shutter priority auto, programed auto. Auto and programmed auto stopped the blades and the water coming from the faucet while the other 2 setting did not. So two questions. Do you think it would be ok to use these settings. And I thought sports was for capturing movement. Keep in mind this is all very new to me and I'd prefer to let the camera do all the work. Thanks

 

[Sw1tchFX]

just put it in sports mode.

 

[pugnacious33]

Depending on how much water is in the picture and how frothy and white it is, the camera may be fooled. The whiteness of the water fall might fool the camera meter, much like a sunrise/sunset or snow into thinking there is too much light, so you may have to over ride the camer and over expose a bit.