Jonathan Zenor Photography

At the beginning of the year I resolved to accomplish 10 things related to photography this year, and I have just completed my second item of that list, the blurred water effect.  This effect is not really too hard once you understand the dynamics of Manual mode and how all of the functions work together, but for this trip I used a mixture of manual mode and Shutter Priority mode.  Just set the shutter to a long exposure, usually 1/4 or more.  I experimented with several settings went up to 2 seconds (2″) which really changed the amount of blur captured.

Unfortunately my wide lens started messing up while I was taking these photos and I had to continue with my zoom lens so I did not experiment as much as I would have liked.  To cut down on the brightness I used a Neutral Density filter.  I only have a 0.9 filter which helped a little, so I was very grateful for the cloud cover which really helped keep the picture from over exposing.

This is my third attempt at getting this effect to work.  Even though it is fairly easy to use, the two other times I went the water was completely frozen over.  Not much you can do there unless you bring a flame thrower.

Overall I am extremely satisfied with the results of these photos.  The only real downside was that there was a bright purple piece of trash right in the middle of the picture which for some reason I never saw when I was out there.  I was probably just too focused on my camera and trying to setup the shot, either that or my 3 year old son throwing a fit because he got his hands dirty.  But a little touch up in Photoshop easily saved these photos.

What do you think of these photos?

I love the amount of blur in this last photo.  Doesn’t it look more like fog drifting over the rocks than water? Very nice effect in my opinion.