Milky Water with a Compact. How?

[Prawnster]

Just got myself a Canon Ixus 90is compact camera and I'm really pleased with it, loads of great features for me to explore but still simple enough for the missus to pick up and shoot something (that sounded really sexist I know but she's not good with techie stuff).

I've seen loads of beautiful photos on here of scenes with moving water where the water looks milky. I'm assuming this is achieved with a slow shutter speed. How do I stop getting a white-out on the shot when I do this?

What kind of settings should I be looking at for this effect to work without having a SLR camera?

Thanks in advance for any help

Cheers
Sean

 

[gregorach]

Your camera may have a dedicated shooting mode for that sort of thing - my Canon Powershot A-80 does, and it's ancient now.

Failing that, look for an auto shooting mode that lets you set the shutter speed and then works out the exposure from that.

 

[hedgepig]

Prawnster, the only way to get the milky water effect is to use a slower shutter speed. How long the exposure needs to be depends on how fast the water is moving. If it is moving quite quickly then 0.5sec might be right, but if it is moving slowly then you might need 2 seconds (maybe even longer). However, this shutter speed means you will need to have the camera absolutely steady or the rest of the scene will also be blurred. How you keep the camera steady depends on how much you want to spend ... balanced on a rock or a wall, maybe a rolled up t-shirt or a bean bag, a mini tripod or a full sized basalt legged tripod with a geared head.

If you are using digital then experiment. If you camera doesn't let you use full manual then set the shutter speed and then dial in "compensation" from the cameras automatic reading to make sure that you are getting the right overall exposure.

 

[hedgepig]

Just thought about this for a bit and realised I had an example of getting similar milky-water results from an SLR and a compact: http://wandering-photographer.blogspot.com/2009/03/canon-40d-and-canon-g10-mini-comparison.html

The image on the left is from an SLR and the image on the right is from a compact. In each case the exposure was the same and the camera was mounted on a tripod. I can't remember off the top of my head what the shutter speed was for these images, but experience tells me it would be about 1 second (this could be longer if there was less ambient light).

Experiment! There is no substitute for trial and error and experience. The camera is just a tool. Like a knife, you get better at using it as you practice.

EDIT: I was thinking about what you meant by avoiding "whiteout" when you try this. I assumed that it was just a case of getting the exposure right, however, if you try doing this at midday in bright sunshine then you will never be able to get a slow enough shutter speed with a compact camera without overexposing the scene. So the other aspect to avoiding "whiteout" is to shoot scenes like this in low ambient light.

 

[Nagual]

I asked about that recently, and was told you need to use a ND (neutral density) filter to cut out a certain amount of light, thus allowing you to increase the exposure time. Hope that helps.

 

[hedgepig]

Nagual, you are right, a neutral density filter can be used in this way if the ambient light is too high to allow for a slow shutter speed - but they are expensive and not designed for compact cameras like the Ixus 90 (attaching them is the main issue).

 

[Tripitaka]

Prawnster

Google CHDK - the Canon Hack Development Kit. Doesn't affect your firmware or warranty, loads from the SD card and gives you a superb menu system including the ability to shoot .dng files as well as other functions.

 

[Prawnster]

Some really good tips there guys, thank you very much!

I'll have a play with it and do some experimenting. Have to find some moving water first!

Hopefully I'll get something worth posting up

 

[brancho]

On most compacts to get slow shutter speeds you usually need to start by switching the flash off. you will then need to support the camera on a tripod or similiar and my advice to use the selftimer or remote to fire the shutter to elliminate camer shake.

As has been said experimentation is the key as is soem knowledge of this all works

This is not water but was taken using a compct camera (DSLR at home) with no tripod at night.

The key being switch off the flash support the camera against a lampost (frimly pressed gainst) and and gently fir the shutter without moving the camera took several attempts though

 

[spamel]

ND filters cna be picked up for a few quid at places like 7dayshop.

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/default.php?type=0&man=0&filterwords=neutral+density&go=SEARCH&comp=