Heading Upstream

Here's a slightly broader view of Zigzag River leading up to the falls. It was such a small and gentle river (our dog Clover hopped around in the river along the hike; it's much too shallow for swimming), and yet it moves with enough force to have patches of whitewater throughout. In yesterday's post I had a question about photographing moving water that I figured would be good to answer in today's post. To capture the blurry motion of the water, you needs two things: 1. A tripod or method of keeping your camera perfectly still, such as propping it on a log, and 2. The ability to adjust your shutter speed.  If your camera has the letter "S" on the dial, you can set shutter priority. With the dial set to "S", adjust the shutter speed to somewhere between 1-3 seconds. It might look like 1" or 2.5" etc. you can play around with this setting and see what you like, but I think somewhere in this range gives a nice sense of motion.