Small side waterfall off of California's Feather Falls

I'm finally starting to learn all the manual functions of my camera.

However, it's still a difficult task to freeze the water without over-

exposing the white highlights. Also, a polarizing filter seems to be

somewhat useless, as the camera re-adjusts in most auto-modes.

Is totally manual operation of my camera a necessity in these

situations?

Hi Larry, I'll offer you a little advice on using your s5000 as I used to have the s5200. You should set your use the aperture priority setting to meter your scene at something like f2.8-f4, then set your camera to manual and set it to the same reading but increase the shutter speed by a stop or two to underexpose. You'll probably have to experiment to find what works best but its really quite simple. If you've properly metered to the highlights you might have to use a postprocessing program to lighten the shadows a little. Again, experimentation is key. Another technique would be to meter your scene before attaching the polarizing filter then again set the camera to manual and attach the filter. I know on my Fuji, the polarizing filter would darken it by two stops on its own.

I hope you don't mind but I've used photoshop to darken the highlights a little and boost the saturation.

Ry