Soft Water-Overdone?

troutfisher

troutfisher

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Chris
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Is it me being cantankerous or is soft water getting overdone in the way selective colouring was used
 
Only in tems of "if you personally don't like it, don't do it".
 
Sorry, I think you are being cantankerous. ;)

'Soft' water is quite an important stage in the photography journey especially for those doing landscapes. It teaches a good understanding of camera techniques and is actually quite hard to get a truly stunning scene out of. We will see lots of images for critique as people are heading for that perfect shot. It also looks quite serene and relaxing (if you let it)

Whereas selective colour is just nasty.
 
Not as bad as HDR...
 
Nod said:
Not as bad as HDR...
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Also not true.
Done well it can be very effective.

The real question covering all effects should only count when carried out badly.
 
gerry s said:
Very very rarely done well though
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True, but all that means is that the majority f*** it up.
Done right it's stunning.
So the question should ask "is soft water overdone if it's screwed up?"
 
Subjective topic. Personally I prefer the water to look like water rather than milk.
 
What's the alternative? Sharp frozen water rarely looks good and TBH that is not how we see the world. Like everything there are degrees and it is another tool in the tool box. I can never get my head around these binary good/bad threads, it's a bit like saying hammers are being over done, we should use screwdrivers instead and reminds me of

We are the angry mob
We read the papers everyday day
We like [what] like
We hate [what] we hate
But we're also easily swayed
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sirch said:
Sharp frozen water rarely looks good and TBH that is not how we see the world.
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This, I'm not saying water should always be done with a long exposure, but it can arguably better represent what we see than a freeze frame which can look very unnatural.

I think it should be considered alongside every other technique and setting when looking at a scene, to judge whether it suits the image and the look you are trying to achieve.
There's plenty of shots where people have gone for long exposure as a default setting and rely on blurry water and clouds to be the interest of the shot, but every genre and technique has been done many times, both good and bad, that's no reason to discount it.
 
My choice of whether to use a slower shutter to blur the water depends entirely on the subject and the way I want to portray it. Waterfalls and fast moving water can look great frozen with a fast shutter. Waves and slower moving water (moving around foreground rocks etc) looks great with a slower shutter speed of a second or less, to show movement but still retain detail and texture. Other coastal scenes look best with milky water. I don't think you can just say it's overdone, because it's a way for a photographer to get a specific look that they're after. I have some photos with smooth milky water that would look crap with a fast shutter, and I also have some with the water frozen still that would look crap blurred.

Graham W said:
If you can tell it's HDR then it's over done.
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I've always said this and I agree 100%. HDR is just a tool to get results. If the results look natural and you can't tell it's been used, then there's nothing wrong with it.
 
Personally I prefer water either quite blurry or pin-sharp - it's the stuff in between where it's just moving a bit that looks like the photographer didn't really bother to think about what they were doing, unless the water isn't a key subect of the image..
 
I find the blurry long exposure water effects a bit elementary and overdone, much like HDR and light painting, But then one could say the same about shallow dof portraits etc! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
 
I've never taken a soft water shot.

I took my tripod and filters out once intending to but I just couldn't bring myself to.
 
sirch said:
What's the alternative? Sharp frozen water rarely looks good and TBH that is not how we see the world. Like everything there are degrees and it is another tool in the tool box. I can never get my head around these binary good/bad threads, it's a bit like saying hammers are being over done, we should use screwdrivers instead and reminds me of
Click to expand...

ChrisDale said:
This, I'm not saying water should always be done with a long exposure, but it can arguably better represent what we see than a freeze frame which can look very unnatural.
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I disagree with this. I don't see or remember silky water I see movement and I remember movement and sounds, feelings even. I can't capture the sounds and feelings in a still image but I can record something that will record a snapshot in time which is to me more realistic and more evocative than silky water.

Each to their own though.
 
As I get older, so moving water looks increasingly silky to me as my eyes no longer focus & refocus to make individual sections of the flow sharp.

Personally I like blurred water in the right image, and it's not a problem if some don't.
 
Lets see, I'm going to suggest that it's not overdone, but it is an effect that is hard to get right. I own a 10 stop filter, and often it's way too much, and I wish I had maybe a 4 stop instead. There is no ideal amount of blur, it entirely depends on the situation. I personally don't like it when things start looking all fluffy like a big rock or whatever sticking out of it, I want to see definition of flow etc. At the extreme end I also like minimalist stuff where it's so blurry there is just the stationary object in an almost plain background.

These are some examples pulled from flickr to illustrate, not my work so please don't go ripping on them, they are just being used to illustrate a point:

This is done well:

https://flic.kr/p/Nrk1df

And from the same person, this isn't:

https://flic.kr/p/BGv2tK

The blur is similar, bur it's the way that it is used in the photo that makes the difference.
 
gerry s said:
Very very rarely done well though
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If HDR as a technique is done well you can't tell so you wouldn't know a 'good' one unless the author said so

I use HDR quite a bit still, although exposure blending is taking over as the go-to technique now

OTT tone mapped HDR is falling out of favour - thankfully lol

Dave
 
Yes it is and in my opinion it looks awful, why make a lovely watercourse look like it's the victim of a chemical spill?
 
I am guilty of this type of photo -I really like the minimalist look often associated with it and admit I am slightly stuck in a rut with them.

I follow quite a few photographers who excel at this style of photography and have seen less and less over the last year or so, so maybe the trend is passing.

I stick with it myself as I still feel I haven't reached the level I would like to but again admit I am running out of locations to visit so maybe it's time to hang up the 10 stop or at least put it aside for a while.
 
GaryS70 said:
I am guilty of this type of photo -I really like the minimalist look often associated with it and admit I am slightly stuck in a rut with them.

I follow quite a few photographers who excel at this style of photography and have seen less and less over the last year or so, so maybe the trend is passing.

I stick with it myself as I still feel I haven't reached the level I would like to but again admit I am running out of locations to visit so maybe it's time to hang up the 10 stop or at least put it aside for a while.
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Maybe you need a familiar location in really good light (not necessarily either bright, nor sloping, but one that makes it look interesting) and re-shoot?
 
ancient_mariner said:
Maybe you need a familiar location in really good light (not necessarily either bright, nor sloping, but one that makes it look interesting) and re-shoot?
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Yes, possibly - the issue for me is matching good light with high tides at a location I can get to in a reasonably short time - It's often too limiting to align all three. It's rare when I can travel a distance just for photography these days.

I generally visit the same stretch of coast which luckily has several interesting subjects for long exposures and have got some that I am happy with - it's just that I often compare mine with examples I hold in high regard and come away feeling lacking..
 
What bugs me is when photographers use a dark ND filter to get silky water when they don't need to. Waterfalls and flowing streams can look great at about 1/2 second and you can easily achieve this without said filter. Longer than about 1 second and it looks too much in my opinion. At the coast I like the silky look on the right subject but I find the "flowing" clouds you get at the same time look quite unpleasant.

It is actually impossible to capture flowing water as the eye sees it anyway. You can stop movement but that doesn't really look right to me either.

For most of the history of photography the aim has been to stop movement; now strangely it seems more interesting to slow it down.
 
I just don't like landscapes full stop. So I'm probably not the best person to comment...
 
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