Is this "noise"?

[ChristopherCoy]

This is one of my favorite photos from my first outing with my camera. I was just going through my flickr album again, and notice that a few pictures (more than I am satisfied with) have a 'vibrating' look to them, which is the best way that I can describe it. It's not overly evident in smaller pictures, but blow that bad boy up and KEEYAWWW! Kinda makes me dizzy to look at.

Take a look at the upper left corner of this picture. Dont the leaves look like they are vibrating? Is this caused by the focus being on the water, or is this what you call 'noise'?

[linque]

It looks like it's just a little movement on your part due to a long exposure. Probably not that long, but long enough to capture you moving. If you want to make the flowing water look like fog, you really need to use a tripod. If you just want to capture the scene as it is, use a faster shutter speed.

[dlanter]

I'm afraid we are going to need a little more information. The exif data is not available from this shot, so what was the shutter speed, aperature & ISO? Was this shot handheld? Was there a breeze blowing? It's kind of hard to tell with this small shot, but I'm thinking it is motion blur.

[ChristopherCoy]

Yes it was hand held, and more than likely it was a slow shutter speed. I was trying to get the blur of the water if I remember correctly.

I can't get the exif data right now unfortunately. I'm at work and not on my home computer.

[dlanter]

Remember the general rule for handholding. Minimum shutter speed = 1 / focal length

[CaptainTom]

Remember that 1/focal length needs you to compensate for your cameras "crop factor" of 2X.

[Patti Edens]

Just a thought that the tripod won't help if it is motion blur caused by the wind moving the plants/leaves. The wind has really been horrible lately. If there is wind, about the only thing I know to do is take two shots and blend them together. One at a fast shutter speed to capture the stuff that will move in the wind and the other one slow to make the water silky.

That wouldn't have worked for your shot since some of the stuff that blows in the wind was in front of your water... Although it would have worked for just the fall area of the water.

Another technique that Ben Wilmore uses is to take several photos at a fast shutter speed on a tripod and then stack all the photos and set the blend mode to "lighten" on all but the bottom one. You might have to mask out any areas that look weird, like if there was a mist coming off of the water or other light areas that you don't want intensified. I'm not sure if this would have worked in your shot or not. I haven't tried out this technique yet, but the one Ben did was pretty cool looking.

As an aside, this stacking technique was actually used (and maybe still is?) by film photographers. As per Kathy Adams Clark: "At the end of our film days it was fun to shoot a 10 exposure shot of rushing water (1/10th of the exposure on each shot so the final image was properly exposed.) The water was silky but not smooth. Interesting look."

[ChristopherCoy]

Patti, I'm doing good to actually be TAKING the photos... LOL Much less blending multiple shots. Plus I dont have the ability I dont think, I only have the Olympus Master 2 software. I'll eventually look into PS Elements, but thats still a long way off.

[Patti Edens]

Originally Posted by ChristopherCoy

Patti, I'm doing good to actually be TAKING the photos... LOL Much less blending multiple shots. Plus I dont have the ability I dont think, I only have the Olympus Master 2 software. I'll eventually look into PS Elements, but thats still a long way off.

Oops. Oh well, you'll just have to get out early in the morning before the wind whips up! Then you'll get some nice soft light and it will all be good.