# Foggy water effect in broad daylight



## RiderOnTheStorm (Jan 19, 2008)

How can I do this??? 

Today I went out to the marina, hoping to get this shot done, and after a couple of unsuccessful attempts I realized I wasn't going to get it. I honestly don't know what I did wrong. 

I set up the camera's shutter speed considerably slow- in order to get the foggy effect-, lowered my ISO to 200 -because I knew more light was coming in-, and adjusted f/stop to around 16.  Even though  I set it up to f/16 my screen went completely white.... then I tried f/32.. still nothing, all white again...

What did I do wrong?? why I had so much light rushing in?? it wasn't a bright day at all.. actually it was rather dark, what gives?

Any help is greatly appreciated.


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## Alpha (Jan 19, 2008)

Do you have any exif data you could post?

And also ignore your LCD unless you're looking at the histogram.


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## sabbath999 (Jan 19, 2008)

Depending on how bright it was (water is VERY reflective) you may need to use a polarizing filter and/or neutral density filters to reduce the amount of light hitting your sensor.


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## Alpha (Jan 20, 2008)

sabbath999 said:


> Depending on how bright it was (water is VERY reflective) you may need to use a polarizing filter and/or neutral density filters to reduce the amount of light hitting your sensor.



This would also reduce the amount of fog in the scene.


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## RiderOnTheStorm (Jan 20, 2008)

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm going to check into those filters to see if it helps


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## JIP (Jan 20, 2008)

One question that might clear up this mystery.  What did the camera's meter say??  All of the settings in the world arent going to matter if there is too much light coming on to the sensor.  Using manual is a nice thing to do but you need a frame of refrence on where to start.  Every scene you are going to shoot has a basic starting point and your meter will give you that whther using manual program or automatic.  If you use manual and just use some random setting you are probably going to get what you got.  I hope this not too simplistic and I hope you do not feel insulted by my answer but sometimes the simple answer is the answer.  That being said if you are trying to do a shot like this in broad daylight I would recommend a polariser or a neutral density filter.  The ND would probably be best for water because for a shot like this a polariser might take away too much reflection and you kind of want it with this.


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## RiderOnTheStorm (Jan 20, 2008)

JIP said:


> One question that might clear up this mystery.  What did the camera's meter say??  All of the settings in the world arent going to matter if there is too much light coming on to the sensor.  Using manual is a nice thing to do but you need a frame of refrence on where to start.  Every scene you are going to shoot has a basic starting point and your meter will give you that whther using manual program or automatic.  If you use manual and just use some random setting you are probably going to get what you got.  I hope this not too simplistic and I hope you do not feel insulted by my answer but sometimes the simple answer is the answer.  That being said if you are trying to do a shot like this in broad daylight I would recommend a polariser or a neutral density filter.  The ND would probably be best for water because for a shot like this a polariser might take away too much reflection and you kind of want it with this.




Not at all, I do appreciate your feed back. Actually, I wasn't metering at all,and to be honest I'm not even sure how to do that LOL. I'm completely self-tough so there are a lot of things I completely ignore. When ever I go out to take pictures, what I'll do is simply set my cam to manual and then set up everything else accordingly, always keeping an eye on my pic previews to ensure I got what I was looking for.

I'm using a Nikon D50 if that helps.

-Thanks


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## Sw1tchFX (Jan 20, 2008)

RiderOnTheStorm said:


> I'm not even sure how to do that LOL.



The manual will tell you.


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## Big Mike (Jan 21, 2008)

I think JIP is on the right track.

You can't just set your shutter speed and aperture without some frame of reference.  If you shots are coming out white, then you are over exposing by quite a bit.  

The camera has a built-in meter...so take advantage of that.  In this scenario, your priority is getting a long shutter speed to blur the water...correct?  I would put the camera into aperture priority and set the smallest aperture (F22 or F32 etc)...and also the lowest ISO.  Then the camera's meter will tell you the shutter speed that will give you 'proper' exposure.  Because of the small aperture and low ISO, this will be the slowest shutter speed that you can use...in that light.  If it's not slow enough to blur the water, then you might want to come back when it's not so bright.

There are other options...you could use filters to block some of the light.  A polarizer will block some light and also help to take off some of the reflections.  An ND (neutral density) filter will just block some light, allowing you to use a longer shutter speed.

Here is a shot I took, I don't have the settings on hand...but I seem to remember that I used a shutter speed around 15 or 20 seconds.  In order to get that shutter speed, I had to use two ND filters and posibly a polarizer as well.


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## RiderOnTheStorm (Jan 21, 2008)

Big Mike said:


> I think JIP is on the right track.
> 
> You can't just set your shutter speed and aperture without some frame of reference.  If you shots are coming out white, then you are over exposing by quite a bit.
> 
> ...




Thanks for making it clear to me, that was exactly what I was going for. Boy do using the meter makes it a whole lot easier! LOL 

 I may still look into the filters but this certainly helps me get a better grasp on the subject. :thumbup:


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## RiderOnTheStorm (Jan 21, 2008)

Now that we are on it -and sorry in advance for the stupid question-, when you have already metered a scene, will turning the flash on alter the reading or will it adjust itself accordingly?


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## Big Mike (Jan 21, 2008)

> Now that we are on it -and sorry in advance for the stupid question-, when you have already metered a scene, will turning the flash on alter the reading or will it adjust itself accordingly?


It depends on what mode you are in.  In auto (green box or P mode) using flash will make the camera want to use flash as the main light....if it's dark enough.  So it will give you a wide aperture and a shutter speed of about 1/60 ...and let the flash make up the difference.  If, however, you use Av or Tv mode, the camera will give you settings as if the flash was not on...and the flash may act more as a fill light.  You have to be careful because you might have a shutter speed that is too slow for motion of camera or subject.

In M mode, you obviously have control over the settings...and the flash will set it's power to match the aperture value that you have set.  You can then use FEC to adjust the flash exposure.

Provided you are using Canon...it's all explain, at great length...HERE


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