Pond and Water Garden Photography

Last night, I had a chance to photograph a beautiful water garden in Bellflower California. It was an awesome experience to capture the details of this water garden. Here are some suggestions when shooting ponds and water gardens.

Schedule Your Shoot Wisely

This particular water garden was facing west so I scheduled to go around sunset. Call up the owner or the project manager and get these important information. If it is facing east, then you may need to wake up early in the morning and catch that sunrise! Trust me, it will be worth your time when your clients see the photos afterwards.

Bring a Tripod

After I fired the first couple shots, I saw my ISO jumped at 3200 to compensate for the shutter speed. Mind you, this is around sunset and I still had some light available.  When you can, set your camera on the tripod right away.

ND-Filter or a Polarizer Filter

The first few shots were shot with a polarizer filter and noticed some deeper shades on the rocks with it on. Becareful stacking up your filters, especially with a wide angle lens. They start to vignette with two or more on.

Shoot in Manual Mode

So you have full control of your Aperture, Shutter, and ISO. For these shots, I kept my ISO at 100, and aperture at around f11-14. Depending on the light, I was using a shutter speed of around 10 seconds. The night photos took up to 30 seconds to get a proper exposure.

Shooting in manual mode also allows you to slow the water movement and make it dreamy-like as shown on some of these photos.

 

Comments on Pond and Water Garden Photography?

Do you have any tips and suggestions of your own? If do, please do share!

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