Waiting for the Water Slide

This is our entry in  The Daily Post Photo Challenge: Waiting  and in Dutch goes the Photo!’s Tuesday Photo Challenge – Water.

In this photo of teens and children using a water slide, we wanted to be able to show movement of some people while freezing the movement of others. The people near the top of the line have something to focus on – the person preparing to enter the slide – and are almost motionless, while the more recent arrivals to the line are trying to watch from the side before establishing their places in line.  With a very short exposure time, all of them would be frozen in place, while with a very long exposure time, they would all be invisible. In earlier shots at 13 seconds and f/16, they were all beginning to disappear and be unrecognizable as persons. We wanted at least f/8 for the depth of field, so opening up the aperture to get a faster shutter speed wasn’t an option (and it could have eliminated the motion blur). This final shot uses an f/8 aperture and a long 3.2 second exposure. In order to have this longer exposure time in bright daylight, a tripod and a 6-stop neutral-density filter were used.

Waiting for the Water Slide

This photo was taken on May 29, 2017. Specs are:

Canon 100D, ISO 100, f/8.0, 3.2 sec, 50 mm.