The Goldilocks Syndrome

In the February issue of Outdoor Photographer magazine, William Neill‘s column really hit home for me–partly because I was preparing a blog entry on the very same topic addressed by Mr. Neill.  As the column is available on line, I heartily recommend it to you, and will pen a few words of my own on the subject.

I’ve been photographing moving water for quite some time; it‘s a major elemental subject of landscape photography, most obviously in the form of waterfalls, but also rapids, streams and waves in large lakes and oceans.  Despite my experience, I’m rarely entirely certain about what shutter speed to use to render the subject in the manner I seek.  Oh, I almost always have a pretty good idea, but much of the time minor changes in shutter speed can have a subtle–but significant–impact on the quality of moving water.  And not infrequently relatively modest adjustments can have a substantial effect.

So what do I do?  I play around with the shutter speed.  Sometimes I fiddle around quite a bit.  Now I rarely, if ever, push this to the level described by William Neill, but when I’m trying to portray something that’s moving–it’s usually water, but not always, as will be illustrated below–it’s commonplace for me to experiment with multiple shutter speeds.

This may, at first blush, seem undisciplined or scatter-shot in approach, but I don’t believe that’s the case.  I’m not referring to firing away with no control.  The method I employ involves the camera mounted on a tripod, the composition fine-tuned, the focus and exposure established manually.  The exposure is then tweaked–and I think that’s the appropriate term, because we’re typically talking about a shutter speed adjustment of plus or  minus no more than a single stop.  This approach is about optimizing a shot already deemed by the photographer to have merit, not firing away and hoping to come up with a keeper image.

With all that in mind, let’s take a look at some examples.  (I don’t ordinarily include technical information with my images, but since that’s the underlying point of this post, I’m making an exception.)  All of the images in this post were shot using a circular polarizing filter.  Some included the use of at least one neutral density filter.

Mill Creek Rapids, Cataract Falls State Recreation Area, Indiana

1.  Mill Creek Rapids:  D700, 24-70 @ 24 mm, ISO 200, f/16, 2/5 sec.  I placed myself smack in the middle of the water, roughly 100 feet upstream from Lower Cataract Falls.  (It isn’t nearly as dangerous as it sounds; while I was in fact standing in moving water, I placed myself in a spot that was remarkably calm.)  The goal was to render an in-your-face view of the rapids, so the tripod was set quite low; I was squatting, with the camera/lens assembly a bit less than a foot above water level.  The water was moving quite rapidly, so I cautiously dialed in an exposure that would accommodate a 1/4 sec. shutter speed without blowing the highlights.  That proved to be a bit too careful–the water was a too featureless for my taste, given the look I was going for (which was to represent something of the power of the scene).  But I wasn’t too far off–just 2/3 of a stop.  A 1/3 stop tweak (to 1/3 sec.) wasn’t quite enough, but shortening the shutter speed to 2/5 of a second did the trick.  So in this case, I played with three shots before being fully satisfied.

Otter Cliffs Sunrise, Acadia National Park, Maine

2.  Otter Cliffs Sunrise:  D200, 12-24 @24 mm, ISO 100, f/11, 1/40 sec.  A lot of photographers seem to enjoy extremely long exposures of surf and that’s fine, but I wanted to catch a breaking wave as part of this particular composition.  This shot was taken just moments after the sun crested the horizon, so the quality of the light was excellent.  Getting the right wave was a bit of a problem, and added to the experimentation, along with the changing light and the quest for an adequate shutter speed at base ISO.  The best I could initially muster was 1/10 sec., which didn’t cut it.  1/25 sec. was borderline.  Another 2/3 of a stop left me at 1/40, which appeared to do the trick.  It took me 19 shots before I got the combination of shutter speed, wave quality and light that I was looking for, which you see in the above image.

Brandywine Falls black & white, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio

3.  Brandywine Falls black & white:  D700, 80-400 @ 200 mm; ISO 200, f/8, 1/5 sec.  I found Brandywine Falls to be a fascinating subject for abstract and semi-abstract waterfall sectionals and I spent several hours exploring different possible compositions from a variety of vantage points.  I was particularly fond of this combination of rock steps and splashes and tried a variety of shutter speeds before settling on 1/5 of a second.  This was a (relatively) rare circumstance where I explored options that ranged a full stop in both directions from the final choice (from more than a second to 2/5 sec.) before settling on a final product.  In this case, even multiple shots using the same shutter speed appeared different from one another in the final comparison.  Approximately a dozen images of this specific composition were made before moving on.

Water Abstract, Matthiessen State Park, Illinois

4.  Water Abstract:  D700, 24-70 @ 60 mm; ISO 400, f/11, 1/13 sec.   I ran across this fascinating abstract reflection in the shallow stream above Giant’s Bathtub at Matthiessen State Park.  How it actually looked was entirely dependent on the shutter speed used to render the scene.  Seven exposures were made before settling upon this one, ranging from 1/6 sec. to 1/40 sec. (an even larger range of shutter speeds than is typical for me).

Summer Breeze, Jardin du Soleil Lavender Farm, Washington

5.  Summer Breeze, Lavender Farm:  D700, 24-70 @ 60 mm; ISO 100, f/22 @ 4/5 sec.  Here we have an illustration of how shutter speed alteration can impact water-free subjects.  (Those of you who read my inaugural guest blog entry on 1001 Scribbles have already seen this image, which I used to help illustrate how seizing manual control of the camera settings is critical to photographic creativity.)  It was a variably breezy afternoon at the lavender farm; with some care, I managed to photograph this scene with front to back sharpness by timing the gusts and managing a shutter speed of 1/50 sec., mostly by raising the ISO and keeping the polarizer off the lens.  (I almost never shoot at f/22 because of concerns about diffraction, but in this case the only way to get the depth of field I was looking for at 60 mm was to stop all the way down; a bit of diffraction is worth the DOF, in my estimation.)  When I decided to go for the blurred look and take advantage of the breeze, I was walking a narrow line.  I wanted some sharpness; I think the blur here has far more impact because there are places of sharpness for the eye to rest.  This means that the shutter speed can’t be too slow (to prevent too much blur) and can’t be too fast (or there won’t be enough blur).   It’s the Goldilocks Syndrome; it has to be just right!  It took 10 exposures to get the shot you see above, with the shutter speed ultimately settling at 4/5 sec.

Incidentally, back when I was shooting transparency film, I might not have even tried to produce some of these shots.  Blow most (or all) of a roll of film without having any way to know if I was really on the right track?  I don’t think so.  This is an excellent example of how digital capture spurred creativity, at least for me.

My recommendation?  Give yourself a chance to play around a bit.  I think it’s usually helpful to do so with a purpose attached, but allow yourself the freedom to experiment to get the best result, even if that means a few (or many) more frames are exposed.