What setting do you use...

[bigfish2215]

I have a Nikon D60 and we will be going on Sunday to watch eagles over the Mississippi. They will be a lock and dam so I was wondering what setting to you use for the water fall? To make it look so smooth and gentle flowing. Kinda wispy? I have the polorized lens filter for the sky and the I have 18-55and 55-200 lenses. Any ideas would help. Last year I use my little kodak z710 and had some good shots. We saw about 300 in one spot, so we could get pretty close to them. Thanks for your help.

 

[VVFF]

I have a Nikon D60 and we will be going on Sunday to watch eagles over the Mississippi. They will be a lock and dam so I was wondering what setting to you use for the water fall? To make it look so smooth and gentle flowing. Kinda wispy? I have the polorized lens filter for the sky and the I have 18-55and 55-200 lenses. Any ideas would help. Last year I use my little kodak z710 and had some good shots. We saw about 300 in one spot, so we could get pretty close to them. Thanks for your help.

Depending on how bright it is you may beed a neutral density filter. This will reduce the light that gets to the sensor so you can take longer exposures. The longer the exposure the more smooth the water will look. You will need a tripod or something to stabilize the camera on along with stepping the camera down in aperture and probably setting the ISO to 100 or so. Doing this will give you the longest exposure possible. If you want less then just adjust the aperture accordingly.

 

[boBQuincy]

I read an article on shutter speeds for waterfalls and it went kinda' like this: "about 1/8 or 1/15 second will produce something like what we see, shorter tends to 'freeze' the water, longer gives the 'wispy' effect".
These numbers may vary but 1/8 will be hard to get in bright daylight without a ND filter.

Multiple exposures give yet another effect and can be interesting.