Welding Glass (£1/$1 ND Filter) Exposures

jabtas wrote in post #12817648
Finally found some moving water

Todays typical setup

Tim, great photographs. What tripod is that in your "setup" pic?

It's a Benbo, can't remember whether it a 1 or 2
One is big, the other is huge, mine is the smaller of the two but still a hefty lump

They also now do a Benbo Trekker, which is much lighter for lugging around
They are a bit tricky to set up, but once you get used to them, they are great

Here a few other shots of what it can do
http://www.pbase.com/j​abtas/image/136692879
http://www.pbase.com/j​abtas/image/136501698
http://www.pbase.com/j​abtas/image/70345294

For the life of me, I just cannot see a situation that calls for the last one, unless maybe a photo book of the Kama Sutra

Thanks Tim. I have a Jessops Delta tripod that I have been using for 30+ years. It's very sturdy and not too heavy, but it wont allow me to get down very low so it's pretty useless for ground level shots.

The one in your photograph looks as though it would be very good for ground level macro shots.

I think I shall put a new tripod on my Santa list.

There's away a few on eBay, they are pretty bombproof and spares are available
I got mine 2nd hand, pulled it to bits and sprayed it in fresh black paint, it looked brand new
Could do with another coat now

Been reading this thread with interest over the past few days and today bought 3 bits of glass for the princely sum of £2. Wish me luck!

repeater wrote in post #12826865
Another of mine in full colour and black & white - couldnt decide which I prefer! Much easier now I have stuck it to a Cokin P adapter...

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/repeater1/59785​82867/
Cardiff Bay Black & White by ~repeater~, on Flickr

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Cardiff Bay by ~repeater~, on Flickr

Any preferences?

These are both fantastic. Hard to choose as the colour one is quite surreal and moody and the black and white just great. Both good

CameraMan wrote in post #12819493
DPP = Digital Photo Professional. Comes with Canon Cameras and works well with the RAW files they create.

Thanks Man ..... I have this but Im not familiar with this shortenings .

A quick one from yesterday. I know the water is blown out but I don't this this turned out too bad through welding glass.

The water looks far better blown out, bit too grey in the 2nd one
Either way, great shots

Thanks Jabtas, yep I brought down the highlights in the second one to stop the water blowing out. But I can see what you mean. The first one does look better.

I'm still trying to figure out a good way to mount the glass filter I have. I found a place that has polycarbonate welding filters, so I'm getting a #11 tomorrow and going to cut it down to a Cokin P sized filter.

Does anyone else find that autofocus is off when using this kind of filter? All my test images are either out of focus or very soft.

No AbPho, I don't have a problem with focus. I assume you are focusing with out the filter, then setting the focus to manual before putting the filter in place. Apart from that I don't know what could be wrong.
I guess when shooting through 5mm of glass you won't get "the best" image quality!

AbPho wrote in post #12867493
Does anyone else find that autofocus is off when using this kind of filter? All my test images are either out of focus or very soft.

Jetjoint wrote in post #12867504
No AbPho, I don't have a problem with focus. I assume you are focusing with out the filter, then setting the focus to manual before putting the filter in place. Apart from that I don't know what could be wrong.
I guess when shooting through 5mm of glass you won't get "the best" image quality!

Try Live View too that works quite nicely. I find trying to focus through it is pretty much impossible without using LV or manual focus.

This is a smashing idea I must say. After months of lurking, reading, then the agonizing wait for the glass to arrive from eBay, I finally registered just to say that I tried it last weekend and it works!!!

In my childish glee to get things going, I totally forgot to make my WB reference shot...
Desat, corrected some and added a tinge of X-pro to make the sun pop out a lil'

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/zichar/59979275​25/