So the first thing you’re going to need to do is to get up early in the morning to get your misty water shot, its pretty much impossible to do it during full daylight conditions unless you have the new breed of neutral density filters which are extremely dark. Even then I wouldn’t recommend shooting during full daylight as you just aren’t getting the best available light. You should be ready to start shooting your subject at least 30 minutes prior to sunrise or 30 minutes after sunset, you will also need to have your camera mounted on a tripod as you’ll need to keep your shutter open for quite a few seconds to create the misty water effect.

Once you are ready to go its probably easiest to set your camera onto aperture priority mode and use the lowest ISO setting that you possibly can. Set your aperture to a setting around F16 if you can. It goes without saying that your next step should be to focus on your chosen subject to make sure your photo will be as sharp as possible. You should also consider getting a remote shutter release and to use mirror lockup to make sure that your camera doesn’t shake while you are taking the photo. Now for the fun part, take the photo! If your shutter is open long enough you’ll see that you too have created the misty water effect that you have been after. How hard was that?

If you enjoy landscape and seascape photography you should consider getting yourself some neutral density filters to allow you to blur your water in situations where there is more light than your camera can handle. The darker your neutral density filter is the longer you can shoot for than if you didn’t have a neutral density filter. For example if you didn’t have a filter you might only be able to have your shutter open for 1 second, whereas if you have a strong neutral density filter you might be able to hold your shutter open for up to three or four seconds. It doesn’t sound like a lot but in the photography world it certainly is.

The best shutter speeds for the misty water effect seems to be anywhere between one and four seconds depending on the amount of light you are getting. If you don’t hold your shutter open long enough it will make your water look like its out of focus rather than blurry, which you certainly don’t want. Holding your shutter open too long will make your water look really flat and boring and again its something that you want to avoid. So what are you waiting for? Time to head out and try and blur your water. A last quick tip before you head out, make sure you do all your focusing without your filter on. Often its too dark with the filter on and hard to focus.

Come and see Jamie’s Australian Landscape Photography. Stop by Jamie Paterson’s site where you can find stunning Australian Landscape Photographs and be amazed.