The Wild Photographer

How to Capture Perfect Silky Water Photos Using Slow Shutter Technique

• Court Whelan • Episode 36

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 27:23

In this episode of The Wild Photographer, host Court Whelan gets into the art of capturing the silky water effect in nature photography. Court explains how to create that soft, flowing look with waterfalls, rivers, and oceans, a technique often seen in professional landscape photography. He shares practical advice on selecting the right equipment, from tripods to neutral density filters, to achieve the best results.

-------------------------------------------
Want to turn your passion for photography into profit?
Download the FREE guide now and kickstart selling your stock photography journey today. https://bit.ly/guide-to-selling-stockphotography
-------------------------------------------

Listeners will learn essential camera settings, composition tips, and post-processing techniques to enhance their silky water photos. Court also covers creative ways to use movement, light, and foreground elements to add depth and interest to each shot. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned photographer, this episode provides actionable insights to elevate your landscape photography.

Expect to Learn:

  • Key camera settings for silky water photography
  • How to use ND filters to control light exposure
  • Tips for creating balanced compositions
  • Common challenges in slow shutter photography and how to overcome them
  • Techniques to capture movement while maintaining sharpness in static elements

-------------------------------------------
Want to turn your passion for photography into profit?
Download the FREE guide now and kickstart selling your stock photography journey today. https://bit.ly/guide-to-selling-stockphotography
-------------------------------------------

Court's Websites

Sponsors and Promo Codes:


Capturing Silky Water in Photography

Speaker 1

Welcome back, friends, to the wild photographer. Today I'm talking about that dreamy aspect of photos where you get this rushing river or beautiful waterfall and it has this motion in it. This, this silky waterfall, or silky water effect, is what I call it Probably what a lot of people call it. Uh, today I'm going to give you the tips and tricks for how to capture it, as well as what to look for. Uh, in addition to some creative elements, some some guidance for how to capture it, as well as what to look for, in addition to some creative elements, some guidance of how to make the most of your silky water photos, because it's not just good enough to take photo of moving water. You got to really make it work for you. And today's the episode to dive into it deeply and figure out how to do it and how to do it best.

Speaker 1

Before I go into this further, I wanted to thank our sponsor of this podcast, lensrentalscom. They're an amazing, amazing asset to photographers out there, and the reason I'm partnered with them is not simply because they help support us, but primarily because I just think every photographer should know about them and dabble with renting some lenses. It's so much cheaper to rent a high-end lens for a week or two, test it out, see if you like it before you buy it. There have been times where I truly test out a lens and I realize I don't need to drop the big money the $2,000, $3,000 on it, and I'm so glad I didn't make that mistake. There's also been times where I tested out from lensrentalscom. I like it so much, I like that copy of the lens so much that I buy it directly from them. So it's pretty sweet. You can, as a listener of Wild Photographer, if you go onto their website, rent a lens and use the code WILDPHOTOGRAPHER15, you get 15% off. So that's pretty sweet, check that out.

Speaker 1

But without further ado, let's get into silky water photography how to do it and how to do it best. So, in essence, what we're doing is we're getting in front of some sort of moving water and, technically speaking, it can be any sort of water out there. It can be tidal water, like in an ocean or a bay, it can be a river, it can be whitewater rapids, it can be a waterfall. Really, any of those things work quite well. I will tell you, first and foremost, that the faster the water and the more white water in your scene, the better and more dramatic it's going to look. So keep that in mind. That it's not, you know, to get the really elevated photos that you probably see from magazines and on the internet. It's the faster moving water that creates that ultimate effect. But you can still get this and we're going to tell you how to get it with things like waterways in the ocean and bays and whatnot. That just creates a little bit of a different effect, more like a misty effect, versus that silky effect.

Speaker 1

But anyway, so to start off with you know, ingredients, you need some sort of moving water. This does not work with non moving water or really really, really slow moving water. You need that movement, moving water, or really really, really slow moving water. You need that movement. The great thing is, you can do this in almost any environment and it elevates your photos so much that you don't necessarily need to have this wild, magnanimous, explosive landscape to have a great landscape photo. This silky water adds so much to it. So that's a really, really key thing. And then, last but not least, out of necessity, you do usually need to photograph these midday, just out of necessity. You're hiking on a trail, you're on a walk, you're on a photographic adventure, you probably come across them during the daytime. So the opportunity we're talking about looking for moving water pretty much in any environment and usually during daytime conditions, and that daytime condition part we're going to talk about here as to why that's a little bit of a challenge and actually probably one of the biggest tips I'm going to give you today is how to capture slow shutter photography during the middle of the day. So we'll get to that in a second.

Mastering Slow Shutter Speed Photography

Speaker 1

Let's move on to the techniques. The technique in a second. Let's move on to the techniques. The technique this is classic slow shutter photography. So you need a tripod, for sure, and you need to have control over your shutter speed. So this is going to be demarcated as a TV on your. When I say TV, like literally the letters TV on Canon cameras. On a lot of other cameras it's S for shutter speed, a little bit more intuitive, but you may need to look up your exact make and model. The good thing I'll tell you is this episode and this technique is for anybody with a camera out there. Even smartphones will do this, and I'll tell you a little bonus tip at the end of how to get silky water photos on smartphones. It's an amazing trick, but basically any point and shoot out there is going to allow you to do this.

Speaker 1

You don't need a big, fancy camera Obviously better quality. I think it helps a little bit to have a bigger, fancier camera like a DSLR, like a mirrorless. But the key thing is is you need to be able to control your shutter speed. So tripod check, shutter speed control check. When I talk about shutter speed priority, that means that you dial in your exact shutter speed and the camera figures out the rest of the settings. Um, you can shoot on full manual. Many of you know my tried and true technique for 99 of my photography is to shoot on manual plus auto iso. So this that that works great for this too.

Speaker 1

But the key thing is is you want to be able to dial in a very specific shutter speed. What shutter speed? Well, what you're really going to need is something slower than 140th of a second one over 40 is what we're talking about here in your camera, whatever for you, still kind of fast. So the cool thing is that if you're stuck without a tripod, especially with image stabilized lenses like the new generation of these on mirrorless cameras are really quite great At 1 over 30, 1 over 40,. You might be able to handhold that with a wide angle lens, but the reason I start with 140 is that's the fastest you can get away with. You really are talking about much slower shutter speeds once you get set up, once you need to experiment, want to experiment out there.

Speaker 1

So the sweet spot actually is very circumstantial. It's very dependent on the movement of the water. How much movement there is, as you might imagine, the faster the water, the faster you could have your shutter speed to still show that motion. Now if you're instead photographing, like up here at an ocean or a bay or some sort of tidal area, you might need like a 30 second exposure, a two minute exposure to make anything really significant or meaningful or beautiful there. If you're at class three, four or five, whitewater, you can probably take a 140th of a second shutter and get some really nice movement in there. So when you're in front of moving water, whether it's a waterfall, a trickle of water in a in a mountain stream, just keep in mind you're somewhere between one over 40, 1, 40th of a second. And then usually I say usually, cause I gave that exception of 30 seconds for like a Bay area where you have almost no water movement but any sort of water movement. Two seconds, between two seconds and one 40th of a second, is kind of your sweet spot. Now I for one I'm.

Speaker 1

I'm going to take a lot of different photos, Like I want to take at different shutter speeds, because what I'm seeing in the back of my camera is a really good indication of what it's going to look like and how much I'm going to like it. But you know, oftentimes when you're out there in the field you're looking in the back of your camera. You know it's a small LCD screen. It might be bright outside so you're not sure if you really got the color and the contrast and the whites and the blacks that you had hoped for. I'm going to take 10 different photos at a range of shutter speeds. So I might start at 140th of a second second, then I go down to 1, 20th, then take a shot at 1, 10, take a shot at 1 fourth of a second, one half a second, one second, two seconds. Um, now, if it's really slow, moving water again like follow my finger, like water moving, like that you can see from left to right or right to left, like that speed. You might want four seconds, eight seconds, 12 seconds. I can't give you the exact shutter speed you need for your conditions because every piece, every body of moving water is going to be a little bit different. But just again, keep in mind that range between two seconds and one over 40 is kind of your working zone, your play zone.

Speaker 1

Now if you were shooting on shutter speed priority, you're likely going to see that your camera is going to compensate by a very, very big F number, ie a small aperture. This is normal, this is common. You're probably going to be shooting at F22. You've likely heard me in other talks say you don't want to be over F11 because of something called lens diffraction, where the pixels get so defined at those big F numbers they actually crowd each other out on your sensor and therefore you you actually have less definition in your photos. That's called the law of limited diffraction. It's a real thing in cameras these days, especially with a big megapixel cameras. You think it might be an issue with smaller megapixel. No, the bigger the megapixel we're looking at 40, 50, 60 megapixel cameras. Anything over F8 or F11 starts to really get that diffraction. I digress In this case you probably have to deal with a big F number, ie small aperture. So F22 is great. You're going to very likely be at the smallest ISO possible ISO 100, some cameras even go down to like ISO 50. That is because of the relationship between shutter speed and aperture.

Speaker 1

I'll make a very, very quick analogy. If you're trying to get enough I'm air quoting right now enough light in your scene, it's like filling up a bucket with water. Imagine one gallon is the amount of light you need. You can fill that water with a faucet or you can fill it with a fire hose. That faucet can be a trickle. You know the aperture. The opening of that faucet might be very, very small, kind of like an F-22, you know those pinhole openings of aperture and then you need a lot of time right. Or if you're opening it with a full on faucet or a fire hose, you only need a split second to fill up that gallon of water. So it's the same thing with light entering your camera via the aperture. Your aperture is the hose diameter and your shutter speed is the amount of time the water is flowing into the bucket. So the reason I'm saying all this is if you need to have a long amount of time. We're kind of doing this water bucket thing in reverse. If you need to have a long amount of time, we're kind of doing this water bucket thing in reverse. If you need to have that water on for a long time to fill up the bucket not overflowing the bucket, not too little in the bucket you have to get a small aperture, a small hose opening.

Speaker 1

Hopefully I'm not losing you here, but the gist is that you do need to create that Now. So here's where the X factor comes in. Is for probably 80% of the time that I'm shooting, slow shutter photography during the day, f22 and ISO 100 isn't going to cut it. For my long exposure it means it can't dial that aperture down small enough. It can't go past F22 for most wide angle lenses. It can't get narrow enough to restrict that light for the shutter speed that I need to allow that movement in my photographs.

Speaker 1

So what do I do? Enter one of the only filters you need and I just did a podcast episode on the various filters you might need in today's day and age. This is one of the few ones that you can't recreate in any other way. It's called a neutral density filter, or ND. You're going to see an ND filter on B&H Photo Adorama online. So you want to Google that ND filters, but not just any ND filter. You're going to need an ND filter based on your conditions, because most ND filters have a specific hint to it.

Speaker 1

So what an ND filter is essentially is like a sunglass lens for your, for your camera, for your lens itself. It limits the amount of light in so your aperture can do its job better. So, again, you're usually restricted by that aperture because you have to have the shutter open so long. In fact, go out and test it. If you need some certainty and need to understand what I'm talking about better, it might be really helpful to go take a daytime photo at one fourth of a second and see how it just blows out the camera. It's way too bright, there's too much light in the scene. You have to darken it. So when aperture doesn't allow you to darken it beyond a certain limit, you have to put something physical in front of your lens. So, again, nd filters are fantastic for that.

Speaker 1

Nd filters are rated by the number of stops they darken your photo. So remember from previous episodes, a stop is just one unit of light. So if you're darkening by one stop, you're basically cutting light in half. If you darken by two stops, you're cutting that half in half, so a quarter from the original light. So you really want to be somewhere in the realm of like a three stop or a six stop neutral density filter to get any sort of significant difference. You know, cutting light down in half frankly isn't enough. So I'm just going to cut to the chase here and say that an ND6 or a six stop neutral density filter is a really, really sweet spot for me.

Speaker 1

However, more and more commonplace in today's photographic world, there are variable neutral density filters that allow you to actually dial the lens and darken and lighten based on the lens itself. Usually what it is, it's two polarizers stacked on top of one another and as you twist it, the sort of Venetian blinds it is a polarizer will overlap, such that you can actually get it almost purely opaque. You know pure, no light transmission all the way to somewhat clear. So that gives you incredible precision. Now, as you can imagine, variable nd filters are two times as expensive or sometimes four times as expensive. But there's a great company out there known as polar pro that I'm a big fan of, a growing fan of, that has really slick magnetic variable neutral density filters. Um, they're. They're a bit on the pricey side but they're high quality and if you plan on doing any magnitude or any quantity of the silky water photos, it's really nice to have something that's easy to put on and easy to take off, because usually that's the barrier to entry is. It's just you just get lazy and you're out in the field and you don't want to have to fuss with a screw on, screw off filter. In addition, if you're in variable lighting conditions sometimes, you know big pro landscape photographers will actually have different sets of neutral density filters, like a two stop, a four stop, an eight stop, a 16 stop variable just gives you the whole kit and caboodle on one nice little easy to manage package. So that's a real great pro tip there. Something I highly recommend is considering a variable neutral density filter if you really wanna try this out and make some quality photos out of it.

Speaker 1

Okay, so let me just review the technique real quick. So you're aware this is slow shutter photography. A tripod is gonna be really, really clutch. You need to shoot somewhere between two seconds and 1 40th of a second. Again, these are just general parameters. There are a lot of shutter speeds between that and you can even go outside of those. And then also, you know, make sure that if you are manually dialing your camera you have that aperture all the way up to F 22 and your ISO all the way down to give your camera as much darkening power in daylight conditions as possible.

Speaker 1

I should say it's pretty cool, it's pretty sweet when you can find a stream or a waterfall that's in really dark shade. This happens a lot, I've noticed in jungles like Costa Rica. Sometimes you get really beautiful cascading waterfalls or big, big bridal veil falls coming down and it's like underneath the canopy or it's in really shady conditions. And then I don't necessarily need my ND filter. That I'd probably left at home, although you should never leave that at home if you're going to Costa Rica, because waterfalls there are really a great, great asset. But anyway, I digress. The point being is that you can oftentimes get away without an ND filter if you are shooting in really dark conditions. The reality is is like most of us just aren't outside hiking looking at these features in dark conditions. Most of the time they're not under big canopies. Most of the time you do need that darkening filter.

Composing Silky Water Photography

Speaker 1

Okay, so we're going to get into the artistry now. So what's happening with the creativity angle of this? There are so many ways to create art here. The classic way is to frame your shot in some sort of pleasing landscape orientation, you know, having something in the foreground. It might be the water itself in the foreground, or having a rock or a flower or a tree, using traditional rules of composition like the rule of thirds, leading lines, having balance in your scene.

Speaker 1

Just a real quick review If you haven't heard of rule of thirds before, that's just basically breaking your scene into thirds instead of halves. If you're photographing a tidal zone, if you're photographing a pier on a beach or on a waterway, don't put that horizon line smack dab in the middle. Put it the lower third or the upper third, same thing with left to right Leading lines. This is this is a real asset to silky water photography, because that water is likely going to be your leading line. Leading line is essentially directing the viewer's eyes towards something. So it might be using that stream to lead into the distance, to show the depth of the forest. It might be a waterfall that's plunging down into this huge misty chasm of beautiful moss-colored rocks, using that water to your advantage as leading line really no brainer here as a possible way to create some really interesting composition. But ultimately all this is about balancing your shot and making sure that your scene and your frame appears balanced from left to right, right to left, top to bottom, bottom to top. These techniques like leading lines, the rule of thirds they just help you get there with a little bit of precision, a little bit of mathematics, a little bit of a game plan.

Speaker 1

Now. So here's another thing when it comes to composition is that oftentimes when you're photographing bigger rivers, bigger waterways or more intricate waterfalls, the white water that appears in certain parts of the river or certain parts of the waterfall, you know, ununiformly, that might be your feature, that might be the thing that creates a beautiful swirl in the bottom left of your scene that you want to put on that intersecting point of the rule of thirds. That might be your foreground subject. So the great thing about silky water photography is that oftentimes the water itself becomes the showpiece, it becomes a foreground element, it becomes kind of what you're looking at.

Speaker 1

So what I often encourage people to do in walking up in a scene here is to really sit for a second. You know the water's not going anywhere. Well, it is going somewhere, but it's not moving like a herd of wildebeest or an elusive tiger in the jungles of India. It's going to be there for a little while. So I want you to walk up on the scene, stop and take a look around for one, two, four, five minutes and start to pay attention to where are the swirls of white water, where is the movement most concentrated? Where are the gentle parts of the stream or river compared to the more chaotic, bubbly, frothy parts? Because what's going to happen is, when you take these long exposures of water and you're trying to make that silky effect, the parts that are moving fast and certainly anything with white water, even a little bit of white water, is going to become exaggerated. It's become a really, really bright focal point of the scene. So the point here is that that extra fast water might become where you want to really draw the attention of the viewer. So that's a really, really key thing Walk up at a scene and analyzing it and experimenting with different speeds of, with the different types of shutter speeds you know, one tenth to one fortieth of a second or two whole seconds but also you're looking at how that interacts with the speed of the water in different parts of your frame.

Speaker 1

You might find that your first photo is just a test photo and it's only until eight photos later that you really find that extra special composition because of your experimentation with shutter speed and placement of the key uh, key parts of the frame, ie that moving water and the variable speeds within the body of water. So again, you know, with with all landscape photography, the the more elements that you layer on top and I mean the metaphorical sense of layer, the more the more extra special things you include in the scene, like foreground elements, like compelling mid-ground, having a distinction between the mid-ground and the background, having the rule of thirds perfectly overlaid with parts of your scene. The more things you can stack in your photo, the better. So not every scene, not every photograph of silky water or intended silky waters, can have all these things. But you know, in addition to the composition, think about your foreground, your middle ground and your background Are there? Are there big, beautiful stones in the scene, or flowers or anything like mountains or trees?

Speaker 1

I will say another really really key tip in the artistry and the composition is finding static components, meaning like things in your scene that are not moving. If you photograph something where the scene is predominantly moving water it's almost going to be overwhelming in the scene. You actually want to balance it with some sort of stationary object to show hey, I'm not, I didn't just drop my camera as I was focusing and as I was trying to shoot this shot. I'm actually deliberately. I didn't just drop my camera as I was focusing and as I was trying to shoot this shot. I'm actually deliberately doing this. So look how sharp this rock is, look how sharp that tree or the mountain in the background is.

Speaker 1

I think having something that is somewhat dominant in the scene that is not moving is a really, really important piece of this whole equation. So looking for that amongst the myriad of other things that you're trying to do at the same time, it really adds the beauty and the exuberance or the specialness of these photos. But again, you can see compounding work. This is why these photos are special and look special, because not everybody wants to do them, not everybody can do all these things all at one time while seeing something beautiful. So it's really up to you to kind of have this mental checklist as you're going through everything when photographing silky water.

Speaker 1

So the other thing is let's talk about your actual depth of field. You know, we already said that you're likely going to be on a high F number, like F22. That's going to get everything in sharp focus. So you can kind of not worry about having that creative element unless you slap on an ND filter and you can choose your aperture once again because your camera is dark enough. Again, that ND filter gives you that flexibility in choosing your aperture, so you might have a lens on that goes down to 2.8 or F4, and all of a sudden now you can start thinking about well, do I want to have a deep depth of field? I would say four out of five landscape shots, or 19 out of 20 landscape shots, probably do have a pretty deep depth of field.

Speaker 1

But there are always those times when you want to try something different. For me, I love experimenting with shallow depths of field in landscape settings. Sometimes I just throw the photo away. It doesn't work, doesn't look right, you really need things in focus. But other times it ends up really, really helping create this ethereal, beautiful scene. So you know, experimenting with depth of field, not always just going for the F8, f11, f22. But again, putting that neutral density filter on, so it allows you those shallow depth of fields and thinking creatively, how can you focus on your foreground subject, be it the water or a stone or a flower, maybe having the water as a mid ground and then the background nicely blurred the distance? Those are some suggestions. Those are some ideas for how you might again elevate and layer more and more complexity into your photo to make something really really aesthetic.

Speaker 1

You've got the opportunity of moving water, looking at all sorts of different techniques in terms of slow shutter photography, with your placement, with your depth of field, with your various shutter speeds. Don't forget about having that really low ISO to maximize the darkness coming into your scene. I think that's really really quite important. And then the creativity here you definitely want to roll up on your scene, give yourself some time to analyze. So there you have a quick primer on silky water photography.

Speaker 1

There are a lot of opportunities out in the world to do this and I mentioned a couple of key ones, like waterfalls, like rivers and cascades, like ocean areas, tidal areas where there is movement of water. But really you can get creative. If you think you're going to be heading out in the field sometime soon with those opportunities. Start practicing around your town, in your backyard you can photograph the faucet at your house to experiment with that relationship between the speed of the water, with how fast of shutter speed you need. Remember, since you're doing slow shutter photography, you can photograph indoors very, very easily. In fact, you don't need to be in full sunshine, you don't really want to be in full sunshine when you're out in the field, you know, start giving an extra little look to those areas where you have moving water, but, more importantly, moving water that moves around static objects. So again, if you photograph just nothing but moving water, it's going to be cool, it's going to be neat, but it's going to look like an impressionist painting. What you're really looking for out in the wild, in nature, is that moving water that's around boulders, around trees, with static imagery in the foreground, midground or background. Really, to give you relativity between the movement and then the stationary objects and their, you know.

Speaker 1

Final note is that there is no perfect way to do this. I kind of keep on going back and forth between that 140th of a second and two full seconds, but there there are so many other options outside of that. You can shoot faster If you really want to freeze motion of water. You're probably looking at one over a thousand for a big, fast moving river or waterfall. So that goes to show you that you know one hundredth of a second still does something. You might want to just inject a little bit of movement in your scene just to add something a little bit more intriguing to the viewer.

Speaker 1

I find that slow shutter photography. I'll have to do another podcast just on slow shutter photography, especially with wildlife, because it's something that I'm getting more and more keen in. I think oftentimes as photographers we start out initially thinking you know, the object is to freeze motion, and in many ways it is. But oftentimes, when we can incorporate movement via slow shutter so that that polar bear's paw drags across the scene or that river looks like it's flowing right in front of your very eyes, it adds another element into your shot that a people don't see a whole lot because, as you can tell, it's somewhat challenging.

Speaker 1

Hopefully this, hopefully this tutorial helps you out. Um, but b you know you just you just don't see a whole lot of it out there. It's it's not a real common thing in photography. So I wish you the best of luck getting out there and giving it a shot. I think that you know it's one of the more rewarding ways to photograph nature, because it stacks this huge cherry on top of what could already be a great landscape scene. But you take it to another level and get this technique that not a lot of people are used to seeing, and it really makes for extraordinary photography. So, wishing you the very best out there, the very best of luck.

Speaker 1

If you are interested in learning more, I invite you to check out my website at courtwhalencom. That's wwwc-o-u-r-t-w-h-e-l-a-ncom. Just my first and last name, court Whalen, and you can sign up for my e-newsletter and blog, where I do provide more photographic tips and videos and I can keep in touch with great things I'm learning out in the field and share impressions and thoughts and keep in touch. So, once again, thanks for tuning in today and I look forward to talking to you next time. Bye.

Head Shot

Court Whelan

Host