June 10, 2009 Tags: beach, harris, Landscape Photographer, Scotland, seilibost
Category: Hints, Landscape Photography, Travel Photographer 3 Comments
I have recently changed my Landscape Photography gallery a bit if you fancy looking, it has some of my more recent landscapes from all round the UK as well
We both felt like we were superstars for the dayWe are so pleased with the photos. They are amazing! We had a magical dayyou both went to so much effort and made us feel so relaxed on the day.One word ... perfectWe just wanted to say a massive thanks for your work on the day, top classSo many people have said such great things about our photographs and we think they are just awesomeThanks for everything you’ve made our perfect day even more specialI was blown away when I saw these shots last week.Just wanted to say again how delighted we were with your workI just wanted to say a huge thank you for the excellent photographyIn the hunt to find a Wedding Photographer, Pete Barnes is a MUST!We got the DVD and CD on Saturday and the photo’s are perfect
hi there! great photos, especially the one with the long exposure, i love that ‘milky’ sea effect! i was just wondering though, i tried this type of shot a couple of days ago,making an 8 second exposure to try and get the blurred waves, but it just ended up bleaching the whole shot. i was using an ND9 filter, and had ISO200, do you have any suggestions that would allow for clearer shots that wouldn’t be bleached (im quite new to photography so any advice would be much appreciated) thanks a lot!
Hi Stuart, Thanks for the comments. With regards to your problem bleaching the whole shot with your 8 second exposure you have over exposed, or let far too much light in as I’m sure you are aware. Your ND9 filter is only a 3 stop filter (the naming is confusing I realise). So if you are taking shots of say a beach at midday trying to slow down the water movement you are going to need a ‘thicker’ filter. Stick with me here – lets say you were at ISO200, f/16 and got a shutter speed of 1/100 for a normal exposure, to get the same exposure with your ND9, leaving the ISO and the aperture the same you would need to half your shutter speed 3 times (each stop is double the amount of light from the last) so 1/100 (1stop) 1/50 (2stops) 1/25 (3 stops) 1/12. 1/12 is still too fast to capture the movement.
You could reduce your ISO by a stop ie 200 to 100 (if possible think nikons have 200 as native) or reduce your apperture f/16 to f/22 is one stop. However doing both of these with your ND9 filter is still only going to get the midday exposure to 1/3 or so of a second, still too fast.
So…. you have two choices either get up earlier (or stay out later) when long shutter speeds are a doddle as the is far less light about or get another filter, you could stack this on the one you have – two ND9′s would make a 6 stop but you would probably be better getting a 10 stop (I use the Lee big stopper http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-lee-big-stopper/p1519732) which is a bit pricey but it’s a great filter. Hitech also do one for about £35 but results in a bit of a magenta cast – which is a whole different discussion.
I know it seems a bit wordy but once you get your head around ‘stops’ it makes things far easier. 10 stops would take your original setup (ISO200 f/16 1/100) to 8 seconds. 1/100 (1 stop) 1/50 (2..) 1/25 – 1/12 – 1/6 – 1/3 – 0.5 (half sec) – 1 second – 2 seconds – 4 seconds – 8 seconds! If you wanted another stop to take it to 16 seconds you could then reduce aperture to f/22 or ISO to 100.
Hope this helps Stuart and thanks for looking.
Pete
Thank you very much! That’s exactly what I needed to know!