Different ways in photographing water...

[Peter S.]

Dear fellow photographers,

I took two exposures of a small water that flows beside the road
of a village nearby. Both were taken using a Tokina 90mm macro
lens on a Minolta XD-7, everything mounted on tripod, i.e. pretty
much my standard setup.

For the first exposure I used a shutter speed of about 1/125s.
For the second ca. 1/4.

There was a varying wheather condition with sunshine and clouds.
So I had the choice for different amount of light. Moreover
I had a polarizer on the second, just to kill light, got no ND filter
up to now).



version 1: sparkling water




version 2: flowing water

But here is my question: What treatment do You think is more
appropriate?

Best regards & Thank You for taking the time to look
Peter

PS: I know the highlights are washed out. I think I used a suboptimum
setting of my scanner.

PS2: the film was Fuji Velvia 100F, which I like more than the other
Fuji slide films I know (i.e. more than the Sensia ;-) ).

[John Parry]

Number 1 every time for me Peter, but you'll get some differing opinions!

I like the water to have life.

Regards - John

[kiev4a]

Shooting running water at slow shutter speeds has almost become a cliche. Nearly every time you see a photo of a rapidly running stream in a book the water is blurred. Not sure what my preference is. Pretty much depends on the individual scene.

[herron]

Peter:
Like Wayne, I think it depends on the situation. For a great many "landscape-type" shots, my own personal preference leans toward using a neutral density filter and a long exposure, to get the flowing water blur.

However, there are times, like in your photo here, when I think the faster shutter speed just works better. The "flowing" look does nothing to enhance your image IMHO...but the chop of the water, as captured by the faster shutter, gives some life to this one.

John told you there would be differing opinions...and you just got both versions in my answer! LOL!!! ;D

[wclavey]

I looked at them sequentially... first one, then the other. The interesting thing about them is that I was surprised when I went to the second picture how much the water was flowing. While the fist has the choppy highlights and lots of "body," only the second has a real sense of speed and current. So, of course, like many of the comments above, it really depends on the mood and sense you are trying to portray.

[Just Plain Curt]

Myself, I like #1 best. Unless it's a waterfall scene I'm not a big buff of slow shutter speeds and creamy water. Even for a waterfall I only like a little bit not completely white water.

[Peter S.]

Dear friends,

I found Your comments very interesting - Thank You for taking the time to respond!
I was away for the weekend (go skiing in St. Moritz, but I fear, there won't be any
really good shots - but it was great fun, since I like skiing as much as seldom I do it).

Wayne,
Thank You for pointing out the cliche aspect - I am pretty new to photography, and
depite of the fact, that I can acomplish the one or the other good shot, I _don't_ know
enough about the cliches and how to treat these emotion loaded situations. So thank
You for pointing out, that I need to be aware of that - and I think that being aware
of the pitfalls is three quarters in avoiding them.

But back to the pictures - I found the texture of the long exposed water very interesting.
Indeed I think, I will do some "time bracketing" more often in order to get a feeling for
the resulting effect.

I see that the vast majority of You prefer the first one - well, I think that the contrast
between the water and the road is much more vivid in that approach. The blurred water
is pretty decent (but appealing IMHO), and that is not enough to make the shot interesting
as the only topic of the picture. On a waterfall or a landscape there is a lot of color and
contrast against a blurred water - but this is not the case here.

Therefore I (now after having read Your comments, and having had a few days passed)
think that the first one works better.

So Thank You again - I am just curious, whether the pair of pictures was an interesting
contrast for You, too??

Best regards
Peter