Daylight Long Exposures

ND= Neutral Density Filters, Basically sunglasses for your lens. They come in various grades, letting different amount of light through.

Google Cokin P ND filters and see what you find.

They limit the light getting through, enabling you to get longer exposures. I'm sure someone else will explain far better.
 
When I tried long exposure traffic shots in daylight I ended up having to stack an ND2, a 4 and an 8. The viewfinder was a bit on the dark side :lol:
 
lukewoodford said:
Ok , I took my new lens out today and attemped some long exposures to get some blurred cars and stuff, but of course the lens lets too much light in. Is there a way round this?
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I just bought a B & W 1000X screw in 77mm. I think it will allow "up to" a 5 to 6 minute daytime exposure depending on light conditions :D

Perhaps though, this is overkill...
 
EdinburghGary said:
I just bought a B & W 1000X screw in 77mm. I think it will allow "up to" a 5 to 6 minute daytime exposure depending on light conditions :D

Perhaps though, this is overkill...
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Those are going to be some seriously smooth/smoky water falls!
 
Flash In The Pan said:
What settings were you using, Luke?
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um I was using shutter priority, anything over a second was over exposing, I has Iso on low, I suppose I should have expected this though, I just didnt think, no major problem, ill just buy a filter at some point. I was using my new len, ill post a couple of pics in the general photo sharing in a minute, I only had half hour because I saw my Mum and too be honest I wasnt very inspired, I kept thinking about going to London and the buildings there!
 
chewyuk said:
It's a git to see through isn't it :)
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Haha, just a tad! You can make the sun out, JUST. Its a case of go wide, aim, and hope for the best :D

On the way to work today, I was thinking about it. I guess you should, setup and compose, take a light reading, get focus, note shutter speed.....then attach filter, and multiply shutter speed by 10.

Have you got the same one? Do you find it "softens" your images?
 
chewyuk said:
Of course you should set up properly, never just stick the thing on the end and hope ;)

Not used it much to be honest, but yes it does soften a little and also colour cast.
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I'm guessing with some PP - most of the quality can be restored, and the cast removed? I think I will use it for fairly extreme exposure blends. I love to shoot lots of "bracketed" shots, so I guess I can do 5 with, 5 without, and have a play with the best mix. Will take a bit of getting used to.

Gary.
 
100%, not played enough yet, but colout cast are easy enough to PP.

to the OG, these filters cost about 60quid and are the extreme end of the scale, the Grad filters will work but won't give you as many extra stops. You will need a holder for the filters, COKIN are OK. But try Hi-Tech's.

Be careful stacking loads of filters, it does drop the IQ and stray light can nip in between the filters occasionally.
 
chewyuk said:
100%, not played enough yet, but colout cast are easy enough to PP.

to the OG, these filters cost about 60quid and are the extreme end of the scale, the Grad filters will work but won't give you as many extra stops. You will need a holder for the filters, COKIN are OK. But try Hi-Tech's.

Be careful stacking loads of filters, it does drop the IQ and stray light can nip in between the filters occasionally.
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Thanks I think ill leave it a while and start with night time long exposures first, I dont want to get too carried away, one step at a time :)
 
When you do get one, think carefully about what strength to get. For every stop of light that's removed, that means you can double your exposure time. The most common filters are ND2 (1 stop), ND4 (2 stops), ND8 (3 stop), ND64 (6 stops) & ND1000 (10 stop). In bright conditions, you might find those at the lower end of the lot aren't strong enough to do what you want. You can stack them if you want, but too many and your image quality may suffer.
Flip your camera into aperture priority, select the narrowest and see what kind of times it gives you for the conditions you want to shoot in, then you can pick the filter(s) that are best suited to what you want.
 
If you've got a circular and linear polariser you can stack them to have a variable ND filter. Make sure you stack them Lens>Circ Pol>Linear Pol and fiddle! With the polarisation of the 2 pols in the same plane, you'll get about 4 stops worth of ND which increases up to a theoretical total block with the polarisation at 90*. The effect varies with different makes and models of filter - if you've got a pair, try it!
 
I have tried stacking filters but the results were pretty terrible tbh, I now have a 10 stop filter by B & W, it was £56 but is a screw on filter and the results are much better. I have managed to get fairly long exposure times even when shooting into bright sunlight. You should really shoot in raw as the colour balance can be a bit off sometimes but is easily corrected.

This was a 13sec exposure but could easily have been up to 2 mins if I hadn't had to move as the tide was coming in really quickly.
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This one is only 3 secs but into very bright sunshine and on a very windy day, I could have used a a longer time but didn't like the results.
IMG_2114.jpg
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Lots more shots can be seen on my pbase pages, hope this helps.
 
Oh one other thing, with the 10 stop on it is almost impossible to see anything through the viewfinder (as others have said) but if I use the live view function I can see what I want and can zoom in to focus. Doesn't work with really long exposures though!
 
Ooo, i'll be interested in seeing your pics Gary! I was reading about a guy playing around with 10 minute exposures, and fancy having a go at some mega long stuff myself with the wide angle lens and a good seascape.
 
68lbs said:
Ooo, i'll be interested in seeing your pics Gary! I was reading about a guy playing around with 10 minute exposures, and fancy having a go at some mega long stuff myself with the wide angle lens and a good seascape.
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I have no time to use it before the weekend, but I hope to make it to Skye on Friday, and spend Saturday & Sunday there too. I will "attempt" to put it to good use! :)

I'm shooting long exposures in EDI this evening, but it will be dark so not using the 10 stop...
 
Nod said:
If you've got a circular and linear polariser you can stack them to have a variable ND filter. Make sure you stack them Lens>Circ Pol>Linear Pol and fiddle! With the polarisation of the 2 pols in the same plane, you'll get about 4 stops worth of ND which increases up to a theoretical total block with the polarisation at 90*. The effect varies with different makes and models of filter - if you've got a pair, try it!
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It may be worth a try...

http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/create-your-own-variable-neutral-density-filter/
 
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