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I have a typical Canon point and shoot type digital camera and was wondering what setting should I use to take pictures of cascading waterfalls to capture the "blurred" motion of the water on an average sunny day? I tried playing around with the various manual settings, but the pics basically came whited out. Any help? I know it's a very novice question, but thanks nonetheless.
You have to be able to adjust the Aperture on the camera. Check and see if your P&S can do that. A tripod is a must too! Your camera model might help also, those on this site with the same camera can lend some info that way.
Last edited by Matt Angry; 09-26-2008 at 01:27 PM..
You have to be able to adjust the Apeture on the camera. Check and see if your P&S can do that. A tripod is a must too! Your camera model might help also, those on this site with the same camera can lend some info that way.
The cameras is a Canon 870IS. I do have a tripod and I believe I can adjust the aperture, though not sure which setting it is. I would really love to learn how to use this feature as I will be going to Maui and Kauai in January! Thanks!
What you really need to do is slow down the shutter. The silky smooth waterfall effects you see in some folks pictures are taken at a few seconds of exposure. The automatic modes in your camera are typically at tenths or hundreds of a second, so this is what your up against. You could probably get into the low tenths of seconds by overriding your automatic ISO and setting it as low as it goes to 80. Your camera has this feature, I checked. What you also want, I'm not sure your camera has which is "TV" mode. That stands for Time Value and allows you to select your shutterspeed, and it will match the aperture to it. If not, you'd have to shoot manual, and you have your work cut out for you to figure out the correct exposure. Even after all that, you still won't be anywhere's near seconds of exposure unless you reduce the light in the scene. So it won't be silky smooth, however the effect would still be pleasing. What the "pros" do to get super long expsoures is shoot through a piece of smoked glass called a neutral density filter. You could buy a cheap one and hold it in front of your camera. Your other option is to shoot just after the sun goes down (or before).
So basically, you need to read your camera's documentation and do some experimentation to see how you can slow down your shutter.
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