Just wanted to share a couple new photos from a few hours earlier today:



Olallie State Park


Iron Horse State Park


This is about 45 minutes out of Seattle, so fantastic for a weekend hike. Both of these are long exposures, in the ballpark of a second or two, to blur the water like that, give it the silky smooth look.

That is spectacular!

Nice shootin', Tex! (Photographic, that is.)

Thanks! I'm glad people enjoy them.

Everyone knows if you move when the shutter's open it'll blur; that's what's going on here. You put the camera on a tripod to keep it from moving, then leave the shutter open for a couple of seconds while the water rushes by, and it blurs beautifully, while all the rocks and trees are still, so they come out sharp.

If you leave the shutter open more toward the 10 or 20 minute ballpark, at night, you can do the same thing and blur the movement of the stars across the sky.

Interesting to see the circular pattern of the stars! Nice shootin'!

Nick

I never thought of blurring the stars like that, I'm going to experiment tonight.

Interestingly, I now know that one of the limitations of the D50 is that I can't set the shutter speed for more than 30 seconds without standing there and holding it down.

Originally Posted by Republikin

Interestingly, I now know that one of the limitations of the D50 is that I can't set the shutter speed for more than 30 seconds without standing there and holding it down.

Ha, that stinks.

Nick

Nice shots Forrest. i think I need to get me a tripod and experiment a little. I have a somewhat manual digital camera and I think I can set the shutter speed. I'll have to investigate.

Lots of similar scenes here in Colorado I can try to capture.

Originally Posted by Republikin

Interestingly, I now know that one of the limitations of the D50 is that I can't set the shutter speed for more than 30 seconds without standing there and holding it down.

That's one of the limits of my 5D, too, and it cost exactly as much as my car. ( Before anyone yells at me, I bought the car used. ) They make remote controls - Canon makes a few from the ultra basic to the wireless, mine is mid level and attached with a wire cable - that you attach to the camera, push and lock the button down, and come back ten minutes later and release it. The Canon ones are pretty expensive, but I've had mine for probably four or five years. It comes in handy every time I have the camera up on the tripod; by taking the picture without touching the camera, there's less movement, and a better chance at a really sharp photo. You can probably do that with a tethered laptop.

Failing that, you can "cheat" - I've spent a lot of time figuring out how to do this. I'm writing an article on the subject, but the gist is you can take a long series of independant 30 second or so exposures, and "stack" them together in the computer to combine the brightest points from each, and together capture the movement over say a 45 minute period. Dealing with jet trails can be an issue, but... I had to figure out how to do that to be able to shoot urban star trails; keeping the shutter open long enough to blur the stars would over-expose the foreground hideously.

For example, there's Pike's Place. The bright lighting means I couldn't keep the shutter open for more than about 20 seconds at a time, but with enough of them, this is a 15 minute cumulative ( aka simulated ) exposure:




This next one, Olympic Nightfall, is the same technique, and for the same reason. Bunch of short photos to prevent the foreground from blowing out, adding up to 30 minutes. The moon also blurs, though, so in this case having all the individual images made it a lot easier to keep the moon looking the way we're used to seeing it.




I really love living in Seattle, in case the photos didn't make that clear...

Wow, Forest, you've got some amazing shots and the techniques are very cool !!

I spent several days in Seattle about 10 years ago. I was lucky, I was there in July and it never rained once. I loved Pike's Place and love all the antique stores even more . The monorail was a fun ride too. Those legs hanging over those buildings downtown were neat.

I'd like to visit again.. one of these days !

Thats some awesome work there, FC!
The first one is so good that it almost looks photoshopped.

Thanks for sharing these with us! And thanks for sharing the way you shot these. I was going to ask how you made the water look so soft. It seems so obvious, but I never thought of the shutter speeds before. The stars are so neat too!
Great work!

Originally Posted by LadynRed

Wow, Forest, you've got some amazing shots and the techniques are very cool !!

I spent several days in Seattle about 10 years ago. I was lucky, I was there in July and it never rained once. I loved Pike's Place and love all the antique stores even more . The monorail was a fun ride too. Those legs hanging over those buildings downtown were neat.

I'd like to visit again.. one of these days !

If you do end up going back make a point to get out of the city. I recommend heading up to Crystal Mountain (if your there in the summer). It's about a 9 mile hike to the summit where there is a restaurant (highest elevated restaurant west of the Mississippi). Also, if you hike to the summit you get a free lift ride down. There is also a crystal blue horseshoe shaped lake about 2/3 of the way up. I can't say enough; also, when you get to the top it feels like your standing right on top of Mt. Ranier.

If you can't tell, I really miss the PNW.

Sounds like something I'd really love to see Republikan, I think I'd be filling up my digital camera's memory card in record time ! I would have loved to get out of the city when I was there, but with the conference there just wasn't any time.

Originally Posted by angele803

Thanks for sharing these with us! And thanks for sharing the way you shot these. I was going to ask how you made the water look so soft. It seems so obvious, but I never thought of the shutter speeds before. The stars are so neat too!
Great work!

It's a little counter-intuitive, but landscape photographers have this saying "a tripod is your sharpest lens." I biked 26 miles along the John Wayne trail, under Snoqualmie Pass through the tunnel ( it used to be a railroad track, but they cleared it for hikers and cyclists ) and through the mountains with a tripod strapped to the outside of my backpack. Translation: a 'pod is extremely important.

People say you need at least 1/4 second ( or longer ) to get the nice, silky white foam look we're used to, and expect to see in a waterfall photo. I've found more like 2 to 4 seconds is ideal. The 1/4 second range makes the water look kind of stringy.

It can be hard to keep the shutter open that long and not overexpose things. It helps a lot to shoot into the shade. If the waterfall is in the woods there's probably enough shadow from the forest canopy, but if the stream is wide, you might have to wait for the afternoon. Also, if your camera takes screw-in filters, a C-PL ( circular polarizer ) is ideal for this. It will make the greens a little more saturated, more vibrant looking, but it will also block a lot of the light from coming through, making the camera darker like sun glasses. Finally, use the lowest ISO setting ( aka film speed ) your camera has, and if it's possible, don't close your aperture all the way down.

Since people don't seem to mind all the photos in this thread, here's the fruits of the 26 miles with a heavy camera, lens, and tripod - this feeds into the Snoqualmie River:



Probably everybody reading this has a digital camera. Which means even if you don't get it right, it was free, and good practice. But the dirty secret is it's actually pretty easy to get the silky water effect. Try it!

( And if you really can't be bothered to drag a tripod along, find a tree stump or something, and use the timer mode on your camera. )

That's one of the limits of my 5D, too, and it cost exactly as much as my car. ( Before anyone yells at me, I bought the car used. )

That's not so bad. We'd be worried if the camera cost as much as your house (even if you did buy your house used.)

That star picture is just cool. Looks like little sparks or something flying through the sky. Kickass stuff, as usual.

This is a pretty radical change of subject matter, but I thought people might get a kick out of this photo ... it's just funny! This is a neighborhood dog, and the woman has had her a year, but doesn't have any photos. She's pretty quick, you could get the idea she just drank a lethal dose of coffee, but she's cute, too. Anyway, I caught her resting for a split second between explosions, and with a little bit of luck, the result is hilarious:

That is funny. A few years ago I was at a friends house taking pictures of their two dogs. Most turned out not so great, but in a few I got lucky and caught an interesting moment.

Another lucky moment was capturing a lightning strike over Coors Field during a Rockies game a few years ago. I was trying to get the lightning, but one or two bolts earlier. I just timed it right and managed to catch it.

I caught lightning once as well; it was in Indiana during a severe, tornado producing, storm cell. I've never seen so much lightening in my life, it was striking around our house literally every second (multiple bolts). It was pretty stupid of me but I went out on the porch to get the picture.

Unfortunately it was with a 2MP walmart special so the picture just looked like a white string on a black matte but it was good for bragging rights.