[Kombisaurus]

My father is visiting me from Tasmania at the moment, and we did a bit of touring around the South-West corner of WA last weekend, staying in a nice little cottage on the banks of the Frankland River just out of Walpole.

Now I'm beginning to feel that the blurred water effect in shots like these is becoming a bit of a cliche these days.... but when you happen to be in the right place at the right time of day with a camera and tripod handy then it's hard to resist the urge to take them..... And this time I couldn't resist... so here they are!









It's not my best work.. but taking photos like these is a lot of fun so I thought I'd share them.

[Irma]

I like them a lot, very nice effect in all of them. Superb colors too...

What lens/filters did you use for this series?

[Pat]

Great photographs of an interesting area we hope to visit next year!

[Banded Drake]

love them , great job as always ...

...... Shawn

[jsg]

excellent photos

[wulinka]

they are gorgeous, kombi! good job.

Uli

[matthew]

I wouldn't say that the effect is cliched. (I'd better not: most of the photos that I've taken recently are of blurred water!) I see some similarities with sunrise/set photos, where photographers too frequently confuse "being pretty" with "having a subject". I would say that all four of yours have weight and substance that carries them past the "ooo, pretty" moment and stand well as landscapes in their own right. #3 and #4 are particularly strong for making a viable subject out of the river and trees, respectively.

As this is something I'm working with myself, I'd also be curious to learn a little more about your equipment and techniques for these photos.

[Wedding Shooter]

3 and 4 are outstanding Kombi. Beautiful work.

[Kombisaurus]

Thanks for the feedback folks.
Matthew, I agree completely with your comparison of this motion blur technique to the shooting of sunrise/sunsets (and I also think the "selective colour" technique too). It is something that can be great when used appropriately, but is perhaps a bit overdone in general.
As for these particular shots, well I took them simply for the fun of taking them, cliche'd or not.

For anybody interested, the details of each shot are below (see image borders for basic focal length/aperture/shutter/iso details):
* All shots except #4 were taken with a Sigma 10-20mm lens on a Canon 30D body.
* Shot #4 was taken with a Canon 70-200mm f/4L lens.
* No filters were used in any of the shots. The very slow shutter speeds were simply a function of the fading daylight, relatively low ISO and tight lens aperture. I would've liked to have shot all the 10mm shots at f/16 and 100 iso, but the fast fading light meant that I had to choose a slightly wider aperture and higher iso.
* All the shots were taken just as the sun was disappearing over the hill. In fact it was a bit difficult to see where I was walking by the time I'd finished shooting these shots because it was really getting dark.
* All except for shot #3 were taken on a tripod using a remote shutter release and mirror lockup.
* Shot #3 was handheld (no mirror lockup or remote shutter) with me lying down on the ground very close to the water. In fact I got a little wet.
* Obviously, the longer the shutter speed the smoother the water becomes. The turbulance that is the main feature of shot #3 is the same little section of rapids that can be seen in the right hand side of shot #2. The difference in blur is the difference between 1/4 second and 15 second shutter speeds, and the difference in colour and light is due to the sun falling down behind the treeline.

[Rabid Penguin]

Awesome!