Need Help Shooting a Waterfall in HDR

[JRE313]

I plan on shooting a waterfall,But with a DSLR, I know you can give the water a cream dreamy effect.
I heard to do this, You have to have your F number really low like 5.6 and your shutter speed like around 4-8 seconds.
I plan on using Auto Exposure Bracketing like I always do.
Is this true?

Also, it I shoot around 5.6, wont everything be out of focus?
I normally use F8-13.

I also have a polarization filter.

If you have anything useful to add, Please let me know.

Thanks in advance!!!

[_Provo_]

ND filter would give you milky effect.


But you can do it manually
How to Photograph Stunning Waterfalls

Another resource would be to send Jason Herrmann
a PM he had done a video tutorial covering this subject a while back
for HDR unable to locate it on his site so my best bet is to ask him if
he still has the video tutorial

[Larry D]

HDR on waterfalls is a tough one because indexing the multiple exposures on constantly moving water.. I'll be watching this for some hints too.. ..

[leszek_t]

You should take a look at the "Remove ghosting" feature in "Merge to HDR Pro" module in Adobe Photoshop. It should help You with the water. After turning on the option You can click the little thumbnails and see which one looks best. Just remember to look at the general picture, not the exposure nor colors. 32 bit images will not look good on typical monitors which most of us have.
This is a picture meant to be post processed at the next step.

[jessea]

I don't get you very well:if your aperture is big(=a small number)the average adequate shutter speed will be high and probably won't give you a creamy effect because of that.This effect is got when the shutter speed is low,so the aperture low too(a big number like 16).In this case,it's better to use a tripod to avoid having everything fuzzy at the end or,at least,use a stabilization if there is any available in your camera or your lens and prop on a tree to make it more secure.
I would do it this way:start at f/16,make a series,then idem at f/11 and idem again at f/8:you will have 3 series to choose from,the best would be depending of the amount of light available.
The polarized filter is useful only if you want to cancel any reflection on the water.Of course,the shorter the focal length,the more dof you get at a given aperture FOR THE SAME PICTURE SIZE on the screen(and you don't get the same view) : of course,the details that you see with a short focal length are smaller than with a longer one.