Long exposure question

I have been reading a bit trying to research shooting longer exposures in the daytime,twilight hours, and sunrises.
So the way I read it you pretty much have to use a ND filter or even stack them?
I was wanting something for like 30 second water burn like on the falls or lake frontage shots etc.
I was looking at the Hoya 52mm 8X (0.9) Neutral Density Multi Coated Glass Filter and maybe the .6 as well for use on the Nifty 50 not sure it would be enough lens either? Maybe go 77mm and the 70-200 ?
Any suggestions are welcomed.

Heya,

Are you trying to do this wide open?
Without spending a dime, all you have to do is make the aperture narrow.
If it's too bright, with your intended exposure time, then a filter will help.

But really, I would try it without a filter first. F13~20, shutter 10~20s, low ISO, see what happens.

Very best,

The Hoya 77 Variable FTW.

Buy larger sized filters and a set of adapter rings. At least big enough to fit your 17-50 in my opinion. If you're looking for 30sec near dark, then a 3-stop or so would probably do, maybe a 5-stop so you don't have to get down to f/20 or higher. If you want 30-seconds in mid-day sun, then you're talking about a 10-stop filter.

I would rock some cheap ebay filters if you are still in experimentation phase.

You can indeed stop down, though it's not always sufficient, and depending on your subject and/or desired print size, diffraction setting in may be an issue.

I have a 6 stop ND, and while that will often get 30 secs with apertures from f11-20 (depending on lighting situation), I plan on adding a 10 stop so that I can get longer exposures and/or not be forced into stopping down so far.