Playing around

There's an office complex not too far from me that has some really pretty landscaping in the middle, with ponds, waterfalls, bridges, and so on.  I happened across it one day when I was attending a meeting in one of the buildings and swore that I would go back with my camera.  And so I did.

It turned out to be a terrific place to play with different camera settings.  The day was overcast, so light wasn't an issue.  I was playing mostly with my 24-70mm lens, but toward the end, I changed to my 50mm.  What I really wanted to do was practice with various shutter speeds to see if I could achieve that really smooth, flowing water effect.

24-70mm lens at 70mm, shutter speed 1/160, f/4.0, ISO 100

Same lens, same ISO.  But... f/16.0 and shutter speed 1/5

You may ask, how did I hold the camera so still at 1/5 of a second? Answer: I cheated, sort of.  I didn't have my tripod with me, so I braced the camera against the railing of a little bridge that crossed over the water.  But I got the effect I was looking for.

Later, I moved to the other end of the bridge and did the same thing.

24-70mm lens at 24mm, shutter speed 1/2 (!), f/22.0, ISO 100

This one, I think, was slightly overdone.  Yes, the water has that smooth, flowy feel, but it's not all that interesting when there's no definition to it, whatsoever.

Same lens, same ISO. But.... 1/13 of a second at f/16.0

I think I found my happy medium here.

Then I tried it in another part of the complex.

50mm lens at 1/800 of a second, f/2.8, ISO 100

Exactly the same settings as above, but changing the focal point of the image

What I discovered, is that you can get that flowy feel in two ways: slow down your shutter speed and close down your aperture (so that not so much light gets in), or change your focal point.  Either way, I think it works just fine.