TWIP Using ND filters for blur

Purpose of an ND filter in photography is a question most people ask when they see the big odd shaped pieces of glass on the front of a camera lens.  These filters can be screw on, square or rectangle.  Various filter types include regular ND filters, graduated ND filters and reverse graduated ND filters.  

The regular type filers stop light from the whole lens that is coming into the camera.  Most of them come in 3,6, or 10 stops.  Stops is the measurement of the amount of light coming into your camera.  For instance, if you are shooting a scene with a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second and decide to add a 3 stop ND filter to the front of your camera, your shutter speed will now be a 1/8th of a second.  You change your 3 stop to a 10 stop, you are now at 16 seconds on your shutter speed.  I have a little handy chart that assist in calculating this in the field.  You can find these anywhere if you just search google.

The graduated filters help the photographer to even out the scene in terms of exposure.  I have found that majority of the time, the sky is about 3 stops brighter than the ground, therefore, on scenes where I am trying to get cloud movement, I put a 3 stop graduated filter in front of the camera as well.  These come with a hard line, for flat horizons, and soft edge for those with lines that aren't so flat.  Reverse grads are what most use for sunsets.  The top is lighter until you get to the horizon line where it is most dense as when shooting the sun, the brightest point is at the middle area of the frame.  

Below is an example of what ND filters can do for your photography.  The top shot is a behind the scenes photo with my iPhone.  You can see the clouds are frozen in time.  This day the wind was blowing about 30 mph and the clouds were really moving.  I placed my 10 stop on the front of the camera and a hard grad filter which is another 3 stops to get this exposure.  Exposure on the bottom two photos were approximately 120 seconds.  I believe the longer exposure gives a little more life to a regular mundane scene.  

Canadian Wildfires

I have been reading about the Canadian Wildfires and it appears that there is no end in sight for the trouble and struggles they are going through up there.  We have seen many of the after effects with many days of sub par air quality due to the jet stream bringing the smoke into our area.  One of the only positives I can think of that has come from the fires is the amazing sunsets we have been receiving here at home.  I have compiled a couple of photos from the past couple of weeks to document the smoke and haze which has invaded the area.

The photos below were taken with a variety of lenses and circumstances.  Some were taken during a very smokey day, while other were taken with just a hint of it on the horizon.  I have tried my best to document the beauty the sky has brought, but remember the situation that those to our north are dealing with.  May they receive relief soon.

To view more photos from the amazing sunsets this situation has brought us, visit my website at AlderImages.com.

Feeling Fishy

My beautiful wife decided that for my birthday she would surprise me with a fisheye lens.  I have been thinking of a fisheye for some time, but seeing one at a recent wedding got me thinking again.  The images it can produce are truly unique to any other lens out there.  Just a simple tilt of the lens and the scenery can give you a great big smile.  These are some of my first images taken with the lens.  All of them were within 15 minutes since it was a last minute test.  All photos were taken with the sunset at my back.  You can see from the 4th image the large cloud bank that had developed just before the sun set blocking any chance at a great colorful evening.

This photo was taken of the exact same spot, just tilted the camera up a little bit to get a little more sky.  

I decided to move down the road a little and split the difference.

The heavy cloud bank on the left was blocking out the sun so I turned 90 degrees to get some of the color from the fading sun.

To see more from the shoot, please check out my webpage by clicking on any of the photos above.  You can also visit my landscape gallery at alderimages.com/landscape.

Thanks for viewing!