On my recent trip to Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, Alaska, I tried to experiment a little. I wanted to use a slow shutter speed to blur the water but had to pray that the bear wouldn't move too much. Obviously the bear isn't sharp but I'm curious if you think this works or have suggestions for improving.
Canon 50D
100-400 @ 200mm
1/15
f 32
ISO 800
Aperture priority
On a tripod with remote release from a platform.
Cropped and far bank of river straightened in pp.
Rachel, there are going to be lots of different suggestions for how to do this and I'm no expert on doing this but I think I'd have created two images - one of the bear perfectly still at a higher ss and then one where the water was nice and fluid as it is here and then combine the two images using masks or image stacking software. Another option would be to let the entire image blur enough that it didn't look slightly blurred but showed the motion of the bear as he moved in for the kill. Check out the blur images down in the OOTB forum - they have a ton of great ideas on blurred images!
Nice try Rachel but I think you either need a real bear blur or no blur at all. The bear in this case looks soft but not necessarily because of movement at least in the head area. The 50D has tiny pixels on its sensor and suffers from defraction problems when you stop down really far, like f32 in this case. I'm not sure of this effect could account for the softness or not.
One way to obtain soft, blurred water is to take multiple exposures and then blend them in Photoshop. That way you can use a faster shutter speed and wider aperture. As Jules said, if the bear moved between exposures you could do some masking to show just a single bear. I would consider all this manipulation pretty advanced Photoshop work myself.
Hi Rachel - Im with Jules and John - not enough blur to work as a blur and not sharp enough on the bear to work there either.
Only way you learn is through experimentation - so dont stop trying things.
Looking forward to seeing more ;)
I like what you try to achieve but have to agree with all the comments above, not enough blur and not sharp enough, sort of in the middle. Another technique I see (which I'm not sure will it work in these situation) is to the use of flash to stop motion during the long exposure.
Thanks everyone. I wasn't trying to lur the bear, just the water and any move by the bear was imperceptable so it sounds like John's explanation was the likely issue. I was stopped down too far so the sharpness suffered. Thanks for all the suggestions but taking 2 images and then combining them is too much manipulation for my taste.
Blurred Water Bear- Does it work?
