How to: Waterfall soft look

DWhitevidman wrote on 10/20/2009, 9:14 PM
I was looking at pictures that were taken using the HDR technique, which produces some stunning effects. A few waterfall - stream photos were taken using the slow shutter speed, giving the frothing water that very soft cotton like look.

It got me to thinking, is there a way to do this with video? I don't know that I've ever seen anything like this, where the video is playing in real time, not slow motion, but the water would have the "photo look" as described above.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 10/21/2009, 5:01 AM
Maybe not the best approach, but certainly easy enough ... duplicate your video on a bunch of tracks, maybe 20 times or so, each one offset another frame forward. Set the opacity on each track to a lower value such as 20%. Adding some blur on the lowest tracks may help.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 10/21/2009, 5:24 AM

This can be accomplish with solid-state cameras with varible speed shutters and recording on cards as opposed to tape.


Earl_J wrote on 10/21/2009, 5:55 AM
Hello all...
just a thought . . . is it possible to mask the water and apply softening effects to only the water while all else remains pristine?

Just thinking out loud... until that time... Earl J.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/21/2009, 7:08 AM
couldn't you just change the shutter on your camera to let more light in per frame? I know that a higher shutter speed needs more light but gives finer detail so I'd assume the opposite is true.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 10/21/2009, 7:41 AM

"couldn't you just change the shutter on your camera to let more light in per frame?

It's not the amount of light, per se, it's the length of the exposure--how long the shutter is open for each frame. Granted that allows more light to enter, but the light is not the contributing factor to the effect, it's the longer exposure time creating the blurred motion in the water.




gpsmikey wrote on 10/21/2009, 8:32 AM
Depending on the camera, you could use the same trick we do for still pix - add a ND filter to the camera (on a tripod of course) to force it to use a slower shutter speed. Another recommendation for waterfall pix I have seen recently is to use a polarizer and under the right light angles, you get some really great colors around the falls (a polarizer also doubles a bit as a ND filter in that it reduces the light forcing a slower shutter speed for a given aperture). I have not tried a polarizer on my video camera yet, but it works well on my DSLR (using a circular polarizer).

mikey
Coursedesign wrote on 10/21/2009, 9:12 AM
If you had to do it in post, there are several very good motion blur plug-ins that track pixels, such as ReelSmart Motion Blur (RSMB).

(Thanks to its pixel-tracking engine, it can also remove motion blur from existing footage.)

RSMB runs in most NLEs and compositors such as After Effects, C*, and Boris Red.
alltheseworlds wrote on 10/21/2009, 9:13 AM
Easy to get this effect with a plugin - so long as the trees or surrounding area isn't moving as well.
http://www.pixelan.com/mm/packE7.htm
Sierra Nomad Photography wrote on 10/22/2009, 10:30 AM
I've tried this (using an ND filter and slower shutter speed). Maybe there's something I'm doing wrong, but the results were not acceptable. While it did soften the water flow, it was "choppy". Water would flow for a second or so, pause for about a half second, then continue.
farss wrote on 10/22/2009, 12:03 PM
Try adding a motion blur envelope using Vegas.
It will of course blur anything that moves but the slow shutter speed in a still camera will do the same.

Bob.
jabloomf1230 wrote on 10/22/2009, 12:49 PM
SNP,

What video camera did you use? "Slow Shutter Speed" is an option on consumer cameras that is actually a frame accumulation mode. For example, if you shoot at 30p (29.97 fps), setting the shutter below 1/30 second would do nothing, so the way that video cameras emulate shutter speeds slower than the frame rate is to accumulate frames. This is a useful special effect for your waterfall scenario or taking video in very low light (if you don't mind motion blur). Sometimes it takes the right combination of the number frames accumulated and the degree of the ND filter to get the right effect. As in:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdcam-ex-cinealta/145587-ex1-shutter-speed.html

Sierra Nomad Photography wrote on 10/22/2009, 9:30 PM
jab:

It's a Pan DVC-30.

I'd never heard of Frame Accumulation Mode; thanks for the link.

SNP
DWhitevidman wrote on 10/23/2009, 12:23 PM
Thanks everyone for the ideas and discussion. I'm finishing up a wedding video, deadline tonight to burn dvds. I'll have to play with a couply of the ideas and will report on the results, using a VX2100.
jabloomf1230 wrote on 10/23/2009, 12:52 PM
Keep in mind that you can get almost the same result by combining one slow shutter speed, still image from a DSLR and an audio clip of the babbling brook/waterfall. As someone else pointed out before, that in frame accumulation mode, if anything moves in the scene (or if the video camera itself moves at all), it will give you motion blur in unintended places.Here's another discussion of frame accumulation:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdcam-hd-cinealta/82801-frame-accumulation-help-please.html