Need help capturing sparkles on water...

H

hulagirl

Member
I sat up in bed this morning and got a face full of diamonds! ; As the day goes on today, those sparkles will travel across the back of the house so I have a chance to photograph them for most of the day today, from different perspectives. ; I need help with capturing it better. ; Anyone have some good pointers for capturing light on water? ; (I hope you're on sometime today, Justin. ; I have a feeling you could help, for sure.)

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I find it easiest to shoot water like this with my spot meter - that allows me to fish around the scene with the spot meter, and try to place it just outside the brightest points of light - you want to underexpose a bit, because if you don't, the glint area is so enormously blown out that you don't get sparkles, you just get a big white area...but you can't expose just on the sunlight glints either, otherwise the rest of the scene will be pure darkness. ; The middle ground is where you want to be. ; assuming bright daylight, the smaller the aperture the better for me, as it will help underexpose a bit, and also give you some nice star patterns off the glints in the water from the aperture blades. ; And a normal fast shutter speed should be capable in daylight even with the aperture closed down - 1/250-1/1000 or so should be possible. ; It depends on how much you want to silhouette the background.

Here's an example of a peaceful early morning sun reflecting off the coastal waterway as a kayaker was going by...he was paddling right through that sparkle field on the water, and I wanted that sort of dreamy sparkly feel:

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That was with my ultracompact, so I couldn't manually set the camera - but I could use the spot meter and meter off of the edge of his wake trail, which forced up the shutter speed and closed the aperture down (F7.1 on a compact like that is sort of like F11-14 on a DSLR). ; That let me get more of the individual points of light, with some star patterns coming off them from the small aperture.

If in doubt, take a few with slightly different settings - maybe try shutter bracketing with a small aperture, so you'll get 3 different shutter speeds - overexposed, exposed, and underexposed...and see which is closest to what you want to get.

Good luck!
 
YAY! ; Perfect, Justin! :) ; Thank you so much! ; I knew you'd come through!!! :star: ; I'll try it in a bit. ; We've had a lot of sparkly today, which ; makes me happy. ; I wish I had a kayaker to cut through my scene too, but as bright and beautiful as it is today, it's still only 35 degrees or so. ; Come ON spring. ; I need ya! ; Then I will be the kayaker cutting through that scene!

I appreciate it. ; Consider yourself hugged. ; I hope I get an image today that will make you proud!
 
just like justin said. ; the sparkles are actually blown highlights so you want to meter from something middle gray if you can. ; not black, but not white either or your reading will be WAY off. ; stopping down the aperture like justin said will give you some of that "blade effect" (f/11-f/16). ;
 
I gave it my best shot and thank you for the wonderful suggestions. ; It was such a beautiful day here today....perfect for getting outside and getting in some practice. ; I fiddled with them a bit in Aperture as I tend to like deep, rich colors. ; I'll keep on practicing because I know they can be better, but I hope I did ya proud for a first try. :) ; I got really lucky and I was totally surprised that right in the middle of concentrating so hard on those sparkles, my neighbor, Mike slid by in a kayak. ; He was the only brave soul out on the water today and I thanked him kindly for his timing! ; I'll post some other shots in another thread, but here are the sparkles.

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Looks like you nailed it! ; Great sparkles, nice star effect on them, and even a kayaker in the scene! ; That does look like some great scenery you've got there, especially if the sun likes to lay down some diamonds for you every so often.
 
Thanks, you two. :) ; The sun's been "laying down some diamonds" for me alot lately and I am so appreciative. ; It's impossible not to be in a good mood with that kind of sparkle in your life. ; Love the phrase, Justin. ; You make pictures with words, as easily as you do with your camera. ; I like that.
 
Very cool! roni and justin!

I never thought about water creating sparkles like that. I'll have to remember that!
 
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