How to waterblur

Someone asked on Flickr how you get waterblur in your photographs.

You can go into aperture priority stick and stop down to f/22 to get waterblur, but you are hitting the diffraction limits of the lens and losing sharpness. (Remember, if you have a polarizer hanging around, it doubles as an 2-stop ND filter. If you have a pocket digital camera, your sunglasses can be a filter in a pinch.)

Horsetail Falls, Columbia Gorge

“Horsetail Falls, Columbia Gorge” by tychay
3 exposures (2.5″, 0.6″, 1/6″) (Nikon D70) ƒ22, iso 200, 12mm (18mm), 81A + polarizer, tripod

ND filters and a tripod are your best bet. A neutral-density (ND) filter allows you to experiment with waterblur on a sunny day:

Redwoods and West Berry Creek, Big Basin State Park

“Redwoods and West Berry Creek, Big Basin State Park” by tychay
3 exposures (3″, 1.3″, 1/4″) (Nikon D70) ƒ16. iso 200, 12mm (18mm), vari-ND, tripod

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ID as nominal philosophy

LA Times reports on a California lawsuit concerning “Intelligent Design.”

Since Intelligent Design as a science was universally shut down, the idea this time is to nominally call Intelligent Design “Philosophy of Design” while teaching it as a science or religion course. It’s a lot like a long car trip with your older brother in reverse: you agree upon a line you cannot cross and then he puts his finger over, then his arm over, an escalates until you start fighting again. Amusing stuff.Continue reading →

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Another nail in the coffin for 35mm film

Ethan pointed out to me this press release from Nikon UK that points out that Nikon Japan is getting rid of most 35mm SLR film bodies, all large-format lenses and enlarging lenses, many manual focus 35mm lenses and related accessories.

I emphasize the word “most” because many people are reading this as “all” when, in fact, the Nikon F6 is still being manufactured and sold worldwide along with the Nikon FM10 for some markets. The former is the latest (and possibly last) in a long line of 35mm cameras that people like me used to dream about owning as kids. The latter is an all-manual camera that has a special place in my heart because I hijacked an eyepiece from its grandfather, the FM2 to build my D70 eyecup replacement.Continue reading →

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Aperture 1.0.1 update

Drew mentioned that Apple released an update to Aperture. This is probably the first of many though don’t expect anything major:

  • White balance adjustment accuracy and performance
  • Image export quality
  • Book and print ordering reliability
  • Auto-stacking performance
  • Custom paper size handling

Aperture depends on the ImageIO Framework to do the file handling and Core Image to do the majority of the heavy lifting in the UI. So the largest changes should be expected when Apple updates the operating system, not Aperture.

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