Photographing water

[Loren Pechtel]

I was at a spring in the backcountry, I don't know the origin of the water but as of last week there's an area a few feet wide with water dripping down it. The canyon wall is wet and water rapidly drips off many points on it. Observed farther downstream I would estimate a gallon per minute of visible water, perhaps some underground water but it appeared that there was a buried rock that was forcing it to the surface at that point.

All my pictures came out merely showing the area a bit darker--could have just been shadow, nothing about it suggests water. Any suggestions on how to photograph it? (Tripod shot but I'll be in the frame. Keep it light, this is miles from the road. The slowest shutter speed I tried was 1/50th of a second.)

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

3-stop neutral density filter, shutter speed 1/4 to 1/10 of a second? What f-stop and ISO did you use?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

3-stop neutral density filter, shutter speed 1/4 to 1/10 of a second? What f-stop and ISO did you use?

ISO 100, I had enough light I didn't need to increase it, center of the bracket was f3.5, 1/125th. I was trying to crop out just the relevant part to post and I see that it's impossible--1/50th did the job but you can't see it unless you zoom in on that bit. 1/125 actually looks "better" (the water doesn't look so strung out) but there's no way I'm going to get a decent picture posing next to it because the details are too small for the scale.

Oh, well, it's certainly not the first time I've found things in the wilderness that the camera absolutely will not do them justice.

 

[crazyfingers]

Can you show some examples of the photos?