What causes dark streaks in water during long-exposure photos?
Asked 6/10/2019
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2 answers
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I’m seeing dark, smudged vertical streaks in the water area of some landscape photos. They appear in the original image, not from editing. I first noticed them in long exposures and wondered whether my Olympus 12-50mm lens or ND filter was causing the problem. Are these artifacts from bad equipment, or is there a normal photographic explanation?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
7y ago
2 Answers
9
Not a problem with your equipment. They are reflections of the clouds. Non-smooth water will cause vertical smears. The effect is subtle here, but it is more obvious when the sun is reflected.
Edit: More evidence, an example of vertical smearing from my library:
Also note that the clouds in the sky in the OP's pictures are not blurred, so the exposure was not very long. It is not caused by a long exposure.
Originally by user84623. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user84623
7y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
These streaks are most likely not a lens defect. They’re usually reflections in the water—often dark cloud reflections—being stretched into vertical smears by small ripples on the surface.
Water that isn’t perfectly smooth reflects bright and dark areas from the sky unevenly. When photographed, those reflections can look like dark or bright vertical streaks. This is a normal effect and can happen whether or not you’re using an ND filter.
From the community answer, the clouds in the sky are not blurred much, which suggests the exposure wasn’t extremely long; so the effect is likely due more to the water’s surface texture and reflected sky than to the long exposure itself.
An ND filter may make you notice it more because it lets you use slower shutter speeds, but the filter itself is not necessarily faulty. In short: this is a scene/reflection effect, not a broken lens.
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AI7y ago
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