Seascape And Landscape Photography Tips – How To Create The Misty Water Effect
Are you impressed with the misty water effect when you see it in landscape and seascape photographs? Have you tried to work out exactly how a landscape or seascape photographer manages to create that effect? Its easier than you think! Its just a matter of getting up early in the morning or staying up late and shooting the water in low light situations. Its not really possible to get the misty water effect during daylight hours unless you are using the new breed of neutral density filters. In this article I’ll explain how the misty water effect is done.
To get a misty water effect its essential that you start shooting just before sunrise or just after sunset to get the best effect. It is still possible to get some blurry water during the day but the light isn’t as nice during the day. You will really need to put your camera onto a tripod as you will need to keep the cameras shutter open for a few seconds and its impossible to keep the camera steady for that period of time.
Okay its time to explain how to get that misty water effect. Its a good idea to set your camera to aperture priority mode when you are first starting to make things easier for yourself. I would normally use an aperture of around F16 to try and create a really sharp photo. Though we want the water to be misty we want everything else to be sharp. Its a good idea as well to set your ISO settings to as low as possible. It reduces the amount of noise that you may get in your photo and it also allows your shutter to stay open much longer. You should definitely use mirror lockup if your camera supports that option and a remote shutter release as well to reduce the amount that your camera shakes when its taking a photo.
If you decide that landscape or seascape photography is something that you definitely want to continue doing then you should at some stage consider purchasing a few neutral density filters, preferably the darker the better. The darker a neutral density filter the longer you can shoot your subjects after the sun has risen or the earlier you can take a photo before the sunsets.
Over the years I have found from experience that the best shutter speeds for creating the misty water effect is anywhere between 1 to 4 seconds. Anything less than this and the water doesn’t have that silky smooth look and anything more than that flattens the water almost entirely and makes it look almost boring. Of course every scene is always different and you may need to hold your shutter open longer or for a shorter period depending on what you are trying to achieve. Now for my last tip, make sure that you focus on your subject before putting on your neutral density filter otherwise its almost impossible to focus.
Looking to buy great Australian Landscape Photographs, then visit Jamie Paterson’s site to find the best landscape and seascape photograps from Australia that will simply amaze you. Jamie Paterson is an Australian Landscape Photographer.
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