Taking Long Exposures of Waterfalls with a Point and Shoot

We were off to Wales last June, the land of waterfalls, and I wanted to try some really long exposures on my quasi-adjustable point-and-shoot camera.

But when I was out practicing I found that even with my ISO set to the lowest it would go (80) and my aperture set to the smallest it would go (8 ), the longest exposure I could manage on a sunny day was 1/25 of a second. And this camera is so fast I can actually hand-hold for that time.

Of course it was sunny and bright the whole two weeks we were in Wales which makes it even more difficult to get a long exposure. I had to face it – to get those really cool daytime loooong exposures I needed a better camera than I had.

But all my experimenting did result in some motion blur, especially if I focused on the areas in shadow. I find I quite prefer these shots to the standard frozen motion shots.

Here is Furnace Falls in Wales with a standard exposure that freezes motion.
The same falls blurred by using longer exposure, 1/25 sec, the best I could do with a point and shoot camera on a sunny day. Swallow Falls in Wales, focussing on a darker area of the falls.

I carried that experience home and tried with some of our more home-grown waterfalls.

Two tiny waterfalls at Lynn Canyon in North Vancouver, BC
Shannon Falls on the Sea to Sky Highway just out of Squamish, BC.
Latourell Falls on Historic Hwy 30 in Oregon in late October, after some rain on a cloudy day. The darker it is the more you can slow down the exposure.
More of Jennifer Nichole-Wells One Word Photo Challenge: Exposure.