time-lapse on river

This weekend I visited Beloit, WI and had the opportunity to try out my new 8x ND filter as well as my circular polarizer when I came across this dam on the Rock River. I have always admired the silky, smooth effect you can create with running water when you have a long enough exposure, so I put on both my ND and polarizer to reduce the amount of light reaching my sensor. Even with both filters on, the smallest aperture (f/22) possible, and ISO 100, I was still looking at about 1/6 of a second for a proper exposure. I didn't think this would really be long enough to make the water silky so I set my exposure up a stop and bracketed each shot to gain a proper exposure as well as a couple over-exposures. After, I combined these in Photomatix to create a HDR which properly captured the silk effect while preserving the vital details of the photo.


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