Hi,

I was on a hike in the Muskoka in Ontario. There was a very narrow channel seprating two lakes... its actually call "pretty channel". I wanted to take an image that would represent the power of the water through the channel. I didn't have a tripod with me so I laid the camera on my backpack and use a variable ND filter to get this image. It was shot in November and you can see the oak leaves on the black rock. My issue with it are two fold... when viewed in a small window the image look awfull due to the bright white space cutting across the frame so that tells me the composition is off... is that right? Aslo, due to the long shutter speed the trees in the background ended up been soft due to the windy conditions. Is there a way to fix this in the future? Lastly, I may be able to crop it some more to make it more balance. Let me know if you have any advice....  I was thinking of sending it to curation because I like the image (probably just because I was there) but I'm hesitant.

Shot on Olympus OMD E-M1kII with the M.ZUiko 12-40mm F2.8 pro at 12mm, F9.0, ISO 250 and a variable ND filter leading to a 2.5 sec exposure.

Hello Pierre,

Thank you very much for sending us your photo for analysis. We also thank you that you provided both the technical parameters of the photo and presented all the aspects of how it was created.

1. Frame.

I do not know this place and I do not know if it was possible to pass safely to the left, but you could certainly turn the lens to the right so that you could capture it - in its upper right part, the beginning of the river. This is the principle followed by frequent photographers of waterfalls and rivers.

2. Taking a photo without a tripod, with filters and motionless at 2.5 s is a huge art and rather difficult to achieve (I would have problems with my Canon R5 and 8 EV stabilization too, and I do not try). On the backpack but with such a long time it is too weak support. Unfortunately, it is difficult to take a good photo without a tripod.

3. You are not writing about editing so I assume you uploaded the raw file. I decided to throw it into PSCC 2022 and process it. I attached a photo to the post.

What I did:

- I changed the frame

- I opened the image in CR and added contrast on the basic sliders, took off the lights a bit and the HCL panel increased the orange, yellow and green colors. The photo has become more contrasting

- I went to PS again and added sharpness and slightly denoised the photo. Unfortunately, disturbed elements such as trees could not be removed.

- I slightly added the Gaussian Bluar effect to compensate for the blur

Finally, I slightly denuded the photo in the Nik Collection.

I think it got a bit of a mood, no less attention to the frame and the tripod as relevant as possible :-)

Remember that this is only my vision and my suggestions and the photo is yours.

Fingers crossed !

Best wishes

Slawomir Kowalczyk

Pierre, 

Thank you for sharing your photo of 'Pretty Channel' with us here in Critique.  In my opinion it's a good photo of a wild, wilderness river.  The long exposure and strong diagonal composition shows the power of the flow very well. 

You asked about a technique to avoid blurring the wind motion in the branches.  If you shoot an extra frame with a short shutter speed you can layer that over the long exposure image and blend the two together when editing.  That would be difficult without a tripod as the two images might not align perfectly. 

It's best to shoot at many different shutter speeds for a scene like this.  The blur will be different depending on the exposure time, the speed of the water,  and how near or far you are from it.  If you've got a dozen different choices, you're sure to have the best one when you're editing.  You can also combine frames shot with fast or slow shutter times for a unique look. 

I like the flow you got with 2.5 seconds, but more texture and structure in the water might be something to try.  If you're a Photoshop user, you can select the water area with the Quick Selection tool (keyboard shortcut = W), then go to 'Filter>Camera Raw Filter' and use the Texture and/or Clarity sliders to give the water more substance.  Sometimes this technique will lighten the area being worked on and you'll need to darken it a little so that no detail is 'clipped'. 

Since we have this new capability to take screen shots and post a sample edit, I've done that.  I hope that's OK with you.  It's so much easier to show rather than try to explain in words. 

I selected the water area and in Camera Raw Filter pushed the Texture and Clarity sliders to the right.  While the water was selected I de-saturated it by 50% to reduce the slight yellow-green tone and make it look more neutral.  I guess it could also be given a cool tint to make it stand out against the warm black rocks and yellow leaves, but I didn't think of that until after uploading.  I also darkened the top right and bottom left corners of the frame a little as they seemed light. Something you might try is flipping the image left to right to see if that makes the compositon flow better.  That makes the photo no longer 'geographically correct', but it's allowed under the terms of your 'Poetic License'.  :-)

. . . . Steven, senior critic

PS:  I did not see that Slawomir was writing at the same time

Hello Pierre,

I did that many times like Steven said, take a "regular" short exposure and then many differnt exposures of flowing water or crashing waves. I find 2.5 seconds too long in this. Every flowing water has its own pace, I prefer the slow exposure highlighting the dynamics, but not water merging into long streak with low structure. For me it's mostly 0.4-0.8 seconds that work best with fast moving water.  

But that's of course only my preference. Here's one example, 0.5 seconds with very fast water:

Best regards,

Mike

Slawomir Kowalczyk I thank you for your critique and I like the more contrasty image. I could not get any closer to the left because of the risk to be swept up in the current. It's nice to get a great show but we still need to be there the next day to look at it 😃

Steven, thank you again for the critique 

Yes I did shoot some extra frame with and without the ND filter... So I could layer in photoshop if I can reference them correctly. I also like the de-saturated water to take the yellow out. 

Thank you Mike for your crtique

I see what you mean... its "fluid" but not to the point where the structure disappear. 

I will re-edit if I can match the other shot in photoshop and see what I get. I will likely go at the same spot this winter and in the fall just because it's a nice hike so... that will be a re-shoot for 2022.

Thanks a million for all you help

Pierre