How to obtain a calm sea effect

I take my pictures with a canon 450xt + canon lens 10-22

and I use cs3 and corel xi.

 

I noticed that the best landscape pictures showing lakes and sea have the water

without waves (diffused and tinted) and I would like to know the techniques or

an article on the subject.

 

I also would like to know the advantage of purchasing gradient filters vs. dark

room processing for landscape photos.

 

Thanks, Rafael Gonzalez CPA<div></div>

When you see featureless water, it's because the image was captured over a longer period of time... the shutter was open long enough to turn the moving water into a soft blur. This requires the shutter to be open from a large portion of a second, to multiple seconds. That's a lot of light coming into the camera... and can cause over exposure. So, many people use neutral density filters (essentially, like looking through sunglasses) to keep the exposure under control. A gradient filter does the same thing, but only to part of the image.

 

There's no way, in post production, to achieve the same thing unless you're working with multiple images and carefully combining them.

long exposure and the image looks like HDR (combintation of different images at different exposure settings to get a more dynamic range)

The image is definitely not HDR. Looks like just one exposure. Keep in mind that you need a very sturdy tripod and a cable release to acheieve these long exsposures.

Multiple seconds at a minimum - more likely multiple minutes. Multiple seconds only gives you blurry waves.

 

Low ISO and ND filters will slow your shutter time. Another trick that works okay is to overlay multiple exposures of the exact same composition. For example, if the slowest exposure you can get is 10 seconds, but you take 5 pictures and combine them all in Photoshop (each contributing 20% to the final picture), it will be as if you had a 50 second exposure.

"I noticed that the best landscape pictures showing lakes and sea have the water without waves (diffused and tinted) and I would like to know the techniques or an article on the subject. "

 

Really? I am in the opposite camp. Check out Philip Plisson (marine photogapher).

 

http://commerce.sage.com/plisson/?__sgx_action=EComFamilySection.showItemFamily('41')

Many of these photographs are taken at night to prolong the exposure, smoothing the water further and creating clear signs of movement in clouds. Look at Michael Kenna's work and those who choose to work in a similar vein.

it is probably best not to have any unnatural light sources in the frame as streetlamps can create all kinds of haloes in longer exposure.

Not sure why some one is so sure that it is not hdr, when I can reproduce something very similiar to the image illustrated using hdr, can also do it with layers and masks, still requires multiple exposures, one very long exposure would blow any parts where you have brighter light, which you have here.

Long exposures is really the way to do it. Get yourself a 10 stop neutral density filter, or shoot well after sunset or before sunrise. <p>

 

This was done in the middle of the day with a 10 stop ND filter, and a 2 stop ND grad to hold the sky back a little. 2 minutes at ISO 100 f/22, shot on 4x5 film.

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<a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v483/sheldonnalos/?action=view&current=Yachats.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/sheldonnalos/Yachats.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Use a Singh-Ray variable ND filter for longer exposures (they are not cheap) here is one that was about 30 sec http://www.photo.net/photo/7020695