Post your 9 or 10 stop ND photos

ManiZ wrote in post #9290503
Wow. This is quite a thread. Amazing work all! This and the other thread on Pacific Northwest photos made me look into Singh Ray ND and GND filters.

Then I saw the prices and fainted...

There's a thread for PNW photos?

Oh, i have to sell all my gear just to live in USA or Europe or Australia

theague wrote in post #9290628
There's a thread for PNW photos?

Get ready to be entralled! https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=802166

ManiZ wrote in post #9290962
Get ready to be entralled! https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=802166

I've seen those same damn photos like 20 times in the last week. Dude keeps posting his photos everywhere. I understand trying to "get yourself out there" but at least use a variety of photos. lol

I was expecting PNW photos from a variety of people.

theague wrote in post #9289772
How the hell do you figure out you need to keep the shutter open that long? I mean 10 minutes is a long exposure (or am I doing math wrong?) and to test shot after shot till you get it right the light would have changed by then...


I HATE hand holding, especially on my 10-22 UWA. It's an absolute PITA especially since you've got to make sure you keep your fingers out of the frame. Doing it on my 70-200 or 28-75 isn't AS bad but I still don't like it.


I'd love to see this thread!

I wrote this over at another thread. I did not want to write the whole thing over again. Hope this helps.
https://photography-on-the.net …hp?p=9239518&po​stcount=44

and btw, I am a big fan of hand holding grads during exposure. It is much faster and lets me move the grad up and down during exposure to create a smooth transition. In the beginning it will be a little difficult, once you get the hang of it, it is very easy.

rvdw98 wrote in post #9288048
Handheld, of course.

of course My hands are made of concrete and have steel reinforcements all over the place.

smashing.poot wrote in post #9291419
I wrote this over at another thread. I did not want to write the whole thing over again. Hope this helps.
https://photography-on-the.net …hp?p=9239518&po​stcount=44

and btw, I am a big fan of hand holding grads during exposure. It is much faster and lets me move the grad up and down during exposure to create a smooth transition. In the beginning it will be a little difficult, once you get the hang of it, it is very easy.

Thanks for the link. Your explanation makes perfect sense. I think I need to learn more on "stops". How 1-stop equates to seconds etc.

theague wrote in post #9291446
How 1-stop equates to seconds etc.

It doesn't.

One stop doubles - or halves - the amount of light.

So you will have to halve - or double - the amount of shutter time, unless you use ISO and/or aperture instead to compensate.

So if your camera meters 1/500s without the filter, and you add a 9-stop ND filter, you must adjust 9 stops in the camera.

Doubling 9 times is 2*2*...*2 = 512. So the new shutter time would be 1 second.

If shooting with a small aperture and it is a bit dark outside, the original metering without the filter may say 1s shutter time. With filter, you would then need 512*1 seconds which is 8 and a half minute. Too much for the camera to handle on it's own, so time for bulb exposure.

pwm2 wrote in post #9291525
It doesn't.

One stop doubles - or halves - the amount of light.

So you will have to halve - or double - the amount of shutter time, unless you use ISO and/or aperture instead to compensate.

So if your camera meters 1/500s without the filter, and you add a 9-stop ND filter, you must adjust 9 stops in the camera.

Doubling 9 times is 2*2*...*2 = 512. So the new shutter time would be 1 second.

If shooting with a small aperture and it is a bit dark outside, the original metering without the filter may say 1s shutter time. With filter, you would then need 512*1 seconds which is 8 and a half minute. Too much for the camera to handle on it's own, so time for bulb exposure.

Thanks for the explanation. So it's 2 to the 9th power really. Does that hold true for any number of stops? If it was a 6 stop ND would it be 2 to the 6th power?

Yes. One stop is always a factor 2 more or less light.

And since these filters are so very dense, you will normally evaluate the exposure without a filter and then manually adjust for the number of stops of the filter.

I have a feeling it's one of those things I wont fully grasp until I actually purchase one. lol

theague wrote in post #9291605
I have a feeling it's one of those things I wont fully grasp until I actually purchase one. lol

I'm feeling the same way reading this thread. I have also heard that with really dark filters sometimes the camera won't be able to focus. In this case do you focus without the filter, then switch to manual focus and leave it set how it is and then take the shot with the filter on?

You can focus before adding the filter. But remember that when you photograph landscapes you do use a quite small aperture, so the pictures have a very wide depth-of-field. And you normally use a very wide field-of-view. That means that it isn't too important with the focus. This means that you can also make use of the distance scale on the lens.

Plus you may want to get acquainted with hyperfocal focusing, in case you haven't already.

Here is my first try on the B&W 10 stop filter. There where lots of sea gulls but none showed up in the image. You can see the tide is rising.
150s @f/22