Need advise, Thanks in advance!

[wdw1976]

I took this picture today, my setting was on auto. It is a beautiful water fall and would like to make the flow of the water "more dreamy". I have a Canon Powershoot SX40. If someone could give me a suggestion for settings, it would be greatly appreciated!

 

[fitzperry]

In order to get that "cotton candy" effect in the waterfall, you need a longer exposure. In order to do that in daylight, you want the lowest possible ISO setting and the smallest aperture possible (highest f stop). Even that may not be enough depending on the light. Do you know what the settings were for your photo?

Most of those dreamy daytime waterfall pictures are shot with a neutral density filter on the lens, which is a dark filter--kind of like sunglasses for the lens--that enables you to take a long exposure in bright light. I'm not sure if such filters are available for point and shoot cameras or not.

Also, the slow shutter speed means that you need a tripod or something else to stabilize the camera (if you don't have a tripod with you, a bridge railing will work, or you can set the camera on a rock and try not to knock it into the water ).

 

[disneyboy2003]

I took this picture today, my setting was on auto. It is a beautiful water fall and would like to make the flow of the water "more dreamy". I have a Canon Powershoot SX40. If someone could give me a suggestion for settings, it would be greatly appreciated!

While this does appear to be a very beautiful waterfall, there are several things you can do to capture a "more dreamy" effect.

First of all, take the camera off Auto mode. In Auto mode, the camera can take generally good pictures, but it does not know that you specifically want that waterfall dreamy effect. That's why in these situations, you need to take the camera off Auto mode, and take control of the camera settings.

In addition, although the rest of the picture appears to be properly exposed, the waterfall itself is "blown out", where there is very little detail in the all-white area of the waterfall. An overexposed waterfall will make it difficult to capture the lines to make a waterfall dreamy effect that you're looking for.

I looked at the EXIF data for your photo. It appears that your camera chose a shutter speed of 1/125, an aperture of F/4, and an ISO 100. As mentioned earlier, to get that waterfall dreamy effect, you need a very slow shutter speed, a small aperture (large f-number), and a low ISO. If you recall from photography, these are the 3 components of the "exposure triangle": shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.

For shutter speed, your shutter speed of 1/125 is way too fast for a waterfall. A fast shutter speed will "stop" the motion of objects in your photo. That's why you're seeing individual drops of water in your photo. Instead, to get to dreamy waterfall effect, you need a slow shutter speed, so that the camera detects streaks of water, rather than individual drops of water. I would shoot for a shutter speed of maybe 1/6 sec at minimum. But I would strive for a shutter speed of about 1 to 2 seconds.

For aperture, you will need a small aperture (large f-number). A slow shutter speed lets a lot of light into your camera. To compensate for this, a small aperture will let less light into the camera. Because this is in bright daylight, I would use as small aperture as I could, perhaps aperture of F/16 or F/22. Instead, your camera selected a larger aperture of F/4 for this photo.

For ISO, in bright daylight, I would use the lowest ISO possible so that the camera's sensor is less sensitive to light. In this case, I would use an ISO of 100, which your camera already selected.

Also, as alluded to above, in bright daylight, it may be difficult to get that dreamy waterfall effect, despite slow shutter speed, small aperture, and low ISO. The reason why it might be difficult, is because those settings in bright daylight might still overexposed your photo. That's when you may need a neutral density filter in front of your lens (similar to sunglasses for your lens) to get a proper exposure for your waterfall picture.

And I also agree that with slower shutter speeds, you will need a tripod to keep the camera steady during the relatively long exposure. Although a shutter speed of 1 second may not seem like a long time, is actually nearly impossible to handhold a camera completely still for the full 1 second. This causes blurriness due to camera shake, preventing your photo from being as sharp as possible.

Hope that helps.

 

[wdw1976]

Thank you both! Will try your suggestions today.

 

[havoc315]

Agree with everything said so far. Just will add, assuming you can't use a neutral density filter with your camera, aim to shoot early morning, evening, or at least during a very cloudy period. The picture will still look "bright" due to using a long exposure.

 

[wdw1976]

This was hand held, point and shoot...the walk in the woods was too long so I didn't want to carry my "cheap tripod" did have a filter on........but again I realize I am not going to get the quality I want with this camera......But thank you all for your help!!!!

 

[wdw1976]

 

[boBQuincy]

A polarizer will also help, in two ways: reduce glare on the wet rocks; and further reduce the light by about 1-1/2 stops.