Blog Assignment #3...Slow it down!

This weeks assignment was a bit of a learning curve for me. We were headed to West Virginia to do some camping so I thought it would be the perfect time to practice slowing down the shutter speed to see what happens! Simple enough, right?! Well, the state forest we were in didn't exactly have the raging river or streams I was hoping for. Have you seen the buttery water shots where the water runs like silk over the rocks? They do that by slowing down the shutter speed, so I thought I'd try it! The less light out the better, so twilight or just before sunrise are perfect. Unfortunately Logan puts limitations on when I can go out (and because I wasn't about to venture out alone with all the bears we saw) so I attempted this picture on a rainy day in the forest when there wasn't much sun out. (and yes, you can make fun of my 1.5ft waterfall! :) Even still, I had to close my aperture as far as it would go so I could slow down my shutter speed. ISO was 100, Aperture was f/32 and Shutter speed was 5.0 seconds (a tripod is a must!). Not exactly ready for a spread in National Geographic, but it was fun to practice! I also attempted a star trail picture and failed miserably. There just weren't enough stars out to make any impact. I'll try that one again next time we are away from the city lights.