How to Produce Wonderful, Professional Water Photos – Tuts+ Premium

We have another Photo Premium tutorial exclusively available to Premium members today. In this tutorial, we’ll be taking a look at how to photograph water. Learn more after the jump!

Interested in creating those impossible-to-match smooth gradients in professional high speed water photos? If yes, you definitely should try this tutorial. Once equipped with the right tools, it be fun to shoot water.

Seeing all the professional shots of this can make you think it is too difficult. I will try to change your mind.

All you need

There is no need of expensive equipment, just a little creativity and a lot of elbow grease to arrange it for shooting.

Equipment needed:

• Camera with “M” manual mode – you must have the control over shutter speed and aperture
• Tripod – it is essential. Even though you’re not shooting with slow shutter speed, it helps keep your focus locked
• External flash – despite the subject matter, these photo are actually all about light
• A Bowl or pan – this should be large and have a solid white or black color
• Plastic bags – these can be filled with water and used as dispensers
• White backdrops or sheets – whether made of paper, plastic or cloth, these will be used as reflectors as well
• Gaffer’s tape or similar – this will hold everything in place, I used red tape to easily see where to put it

There are many substitution that can be made in this process once you have a feel for how it all comes together.

The Setup

Why is this chair on the picture? It will help to even out the height of a tripod and pan. If there is more comfortable place for the equipment, don’t hesitate to use it. It is essential to have place where you can hang the plastic bag over the pan. Try to arrange things in the same way as the picture below to achieve same final results.

The setup

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