To SteveH: smaller aperture

[ayobami]

Hi Steve,

I definitely agree with you about getting the flowers in the foreground a bit more in focus. I'm still experimenting with these types of scenes where there is low light but lots of colour. I definitely should have had my tripod but that day we raced back up there to get even these shots before the sun set).

One image I'm especially trying to capture is the classic slow water motion effect found in waterfalls in dense forest areas like this one on my igoogle page today http://www.flickr.com/photos/rasone/2544579788/. Perhaps you can offer some tips? How do you get the right exposure of the trees etc and capture the movement of the water? Each time I slow down my shutter speed I overexpose the rest.

Thanks always for all of your comments...

Cora

[SteveH]

Hi Cora,

From what you say it sounds like when you increase the length of the exposure to get bluring of the water you are not decreasing the apperture. Without knowing precisely how your camera works or is set up, generally it will measure the light and choose a combination of apperture and shutter speed to give "correct" amount of light. If you vary one of these, you will need to vary the other the same number of exposure values in the other direction. I have a couple of photos of this situation which I'll post as WS to your most recent post. The blurred one is f32 with 1/3, whilst the unblurred one is f9.5 and 1/60, so there are 7 f-stops between f32 and f9.5, and 9 between 1/3 and 1/60. I'm surprised that there are not the exact same number, but you get the idea, perhaps the light had changed between shots.

I see that the 20D has a shutter speed priority setting. If you use this to choose a suitably long exposure the camera will (or should) select the apperture setting to give the correct exposure.

Does that makes sense and answer your question?

Cheers, Steve