Blowing in the wind (again)

[Autumn]

Yesterday the wind was blowing the leaves off the trees and I thought I would try to catch a picture of the leaves flying about. I wanted it to look arty.

I tried several different settings, but as I slowed the shutter speed, the camera closed down. I then applied exposure compensation up to -2 stops, on some of them, but the sky was still blown.

I nearly got what I was trying to do, but I wanted to see the blue sky.

The highest F number is F8 and but I can use a very slow shutter speed even (B). ISO 100. The slower the shutter speed, the more blown was the sky.

How could I have achieved moving leaves and a correctly exposed sky?

[Pol]

Re: Blowing in the wind (again)

Yesterday the wind was blowing the leaves off the trees and I thought I would try to catch a picture of the leaves flying about. I wanted it to look arty.

I tried several different settings, but as I slowed the shutter speed, the camera closed down. I then applied exposure compensation up to -2 stops, on some of them, but the sky was still blown.

I nearly got what I was trying to do, but I wanted to see the blue sky.

The highest F number is F8 and but I can use a very slow shutter speed even (B). ISO 100. The slower the shutter speed, the more blown was the sky.

How could I have achieved moving leaves and a correctly exposed sky?

]

I've never tried anything like that but did you try using the ND filter. Does the G3 have a built in ND? I seem to recall it does? That might work to hold back the sky from blowing out.



Pol

[Stephen]

Re: Blowing in the wind (again)

Hi Audrey, I've moved this thread to here as I felt you were looking for help rather than critique. I'd agree with Pol though. A ND filter is perhaps the best solution, though of course who has one and how often do they carry them round Does your Fuji camera have one built in, I know the Canon G3 did.

[Autumn]

Re: Blowing in the wind (again)

Hi Audrey, I've moved this thread to here as I felt you were looking for help rather than critique. I'd agree with Pol though. A ND filter is perhaps the best solution, though of course who has one and how often do they carry them round Does your Fuji camera have one built in, I know the Canon G3 did.

No, it doesn't and I do miss it. I used it when I took the bridge picture in Lisbon and didn't need to do any adjustment at all to it. I also used in on the Realto Bridge -but that was in error. I realised what I had done and took it off, but the picture with the filter on was the best.

So there is no way of reducing the exposure on my camera and getting a slow shutter speed?

[yoshi]

Re: Blowing in the wind (again)

Hi Autumn,
I just visited your gallery , watched them and found this thread. For the the "leaves blowing in the gusty wind", I understand that you wanted blueish sky well. But for this typical ones, I think the high key tone pics are also nice. They just look like you used a pure white background paper on Bonsai's ( a sort of flower/tree arrangements) - quite natural and nice to me.

In case you want more blue sky, a suitable filter would help as suggested and if i pay more attention to the title of these pictures, i.e. leaves blowing in the wind, then a slower shutter might be also worth trying. Just an idea.

yoshi

[Autumn]

Re: Blowing in the wind (again)

Hi Autumn,
I just visited your gallery , watched them and found this thread. For the the "leaves blowing in the gusty wind", I understand that you wanted blueish sky well. But for this typical ones, I think the high key tone pics are also nice. They just look like you used a pure white background paper on Bonsai's ( a sort of flower/tree arrangements) - quite natural and nice to me.

In case you want more blue sky, a suitable filter would help as suggested and if i pay more attention to the title of these pictures, i.e. leaves blowing in the wind, then a slower shutter might be also worth trying. Just an idea.

yoshi

Thanks Yoshi, I did try a much slower but as the smallest aperature I have is F8, the whole picture was almost a 'white out', so I had to gradually increase the shutter speed until there was something there.

Glad you like it as it is. If I blow a small portion up to 100%, it almost looks like a watercolour painting.

[Nicholas]

Re: Blowing in the wind (again)

Hello Autumn,

Glad to read a post by a fellow leaf chaser.

The leaves are just about all gone in New York. Here is my 2006 attempt to capture falling Autumn leaves:

http://nickphoto123.smugmug.com/gallery/2133463

Here is how I shot them:

1) I find a suitable tree and stand away from its trunk at a point where the scene in my viewfinder makes a good composition.
2) I then focus on the tree trunk, and keeping the lens in position, I set my R-1 to manual focus.
3) I then maintain my position and meter the scene again and transfer these readings to manual exposure settings.
4) I turn on my built-in flash, default strength.
5) Now I am ready to catch a falling leaf ( with almost no shutter lag ) at the approximate distance the trunk is from me all along the extended circular focus range ( by turning to my left or right ). I keep my camera wide open and crop the image of captured leaves.

For your shots I would forget trying to overcome the high contrast ratio of the scene before you and focus ( no pun intended ) on the leaves.

Glad to see I am not the only leaf chaser.

Regards, Nicholas

[Autumn]

Re: Blowing in the wind (again)

Thanks for your interest and information Nick. I must try it before all the leaves fall off. BTW nice pics. The blurred flowers look summery in colour. What are they?

[Nicholas]

Re: Blowing in the wind (again)

Hi Autumn,

The out of focus flowers are the season's last roses.

They were part of my chosen composition as I wrote above.

Glad to hear you will give it a try and that you still have some leaves on the trees to work with.

Anxious to see your images.

Regards, Nicholas

[yoshi]

Re: Blowing in the wind (again)

Hi Nicholas,
Well, you stopped the falling leaves effectively using the flash and all of them are just in-focus which is amazing to me! BTW do you like leaves blowing in the wind only? How about floating ones?
yoshi

[bigbob]

Re: Blowing in the wind (again)

It's very difficult if not impossible to use a low shutter speed (1/30sec and below) and leave any highlights correctly exposed without using a ND filter , F8 is'nt a high enough aperture it needs a mimimum of F22 to reduce the aperture to a pin prick and that will proberbly only give you somewhere near 1/100sec in good light .
One little trick which will work in lowish light (woods for instance) is to use a polarising filter and stand with the light source level with either shoulder , turn the filter slowly untill the image darkens , won't be brilliant but it does reduce light .
Of course if you meter correctly for the background then anything moving in the foreground will blur providing it's moving quickly enough .
Plus you can focus and pan on the leaves to turn the background into a blur , or set the lowish shutter speed you can to expose correctly and then zoom the lense either in or out as you press the shutter (need to be quick) to give a tunnel effect .
Lots of ways to be arty without buying extra gear .

B..

[Pol]

Re: Blowing in the wind (again)

Hi Autumn,

The out of focus flowers are the season's last roses.

They were part of my chosen composition as I wrote above.

Glad to hear you will give it a try and that you still have some leaves on the trees to work with.

Anxious to see your images.

Regards, Nicholas

They're amazing shots, Nicholas. Beautiful colours too.

Many thanks for sharing your technique.

Pol

[yoshi]

Re: Blowing in the wind (again)

It's very difficult if not impossible to use a low shutter speed (1/30sec and below) and leave any highlights correctly exposed without using a ND filter , F8 is'nt a high enough aperture it needs a mimimum of F22 to reduce the aperture to a pin prick and that will proberbly only give you somewhere near 1/100sec in good light . One little trick which will work in lowish light (woods for instance) is to use a polarising filter and stand with the light source level with either shoulder , turn the filter slowly untill the image darkens , won't be brilliant but it does reduce light .
Of course if you meter correctly for the background then anything moving in the foreground will blur providing it's moving quickly enough .
Plus you can focus and pan on the leaves to turn the background into a blur , or set the lowish shutter speed you can to expose correctly and then zoom the lense either in or out as you press the shutter (need to be quick) to give a tunnel effect .
Lots of ways to be arty without buying extra gear .

B..

Hi Bigbob,
Yeah right, the background in this case looks like a bit too bright for using a slower shutter so need some measures if we want to use slow shutters. IMHO ND seems better as PL filter gives up to two steps more, i.e. F16 or so.

Keeping the distance between the lens and the falling leaves shorter might also help for blurring but this is not always possible.

I thought tunnel effect is interesting especially for Nicholas's pictures where the falling leaves are stopping in the frame.

BTW I like your last words, as gears are in most cases just of second importance or less. More important thing is to take pics. - Though I admit talking about new models are sometimes interesting, when you can not go out.
yoshi