Some clouds broke up the perfectly clear blue skies we've had for the last few days, promising the possibility of a good sunset -- and it didn't disappoint.
Continuing my current beach theme, I headed to Acadia Beach near UBC. I walked about a kilometre along to find this rock formation which seemed interesting and was at the water level.
The clouds were moving relatively quickly across the sky, although it was pretty calm at ground level, so I set up with another low viewpoint (upsetting a few crabs hiding in the rocks) and took a long exposure to capture the motion in the sky while smoothing out the water as it lapped against the shore.
I used my usual filter setup of a 3-stop graduated ND filter for the sky, a circular polariser to capture the reflections, and a 10-stop ND filter to slow the shutter speed, ending up with an exposure time of 4 minutes.
I'm a British software developer and photographer living in Vancouver, BC. I mainly photograph landscapes, cityscapes, night scenes, and water.
If you're interested in any...
FAV! can i ask how you use the 10 stop and 3 stop grad as when i try i fail badly.i have a Lee holder and if i put the grad in first when i put the 10 stop it moves it.. and if i put the 10 stop in first i obviously cant see anything anyway...
I don't understand the last paragraph but maybe I will learn! I don't need to learn what is good though- this is an established composition that is always good if worked well! It is so good here! Fav
@markyl Hmm, I can't say I've ever had that problem! Is the issue that the filters touch each other when you slide them in, or that sliding the second filter in causes the ND filter to slip?
The 10-stop filter should always be the rearmost filter (closest to the lens), and with the foam gasket facing towards the lens as well -- this stops light leaking around the filter. Could you place the graduated filter in the front slot with the middle slot empty? Would that help?
As you can see, none of the filters touch each other, and I can move or remove any of them without the others moving at all.
Are all of your filters genuine Lee filters? Maybe if you have an aftermarket filter it's slightly thinner, and not being gripped as well by the Lee holder? I've heard of some people having problems with their genuine Lee circular polariser slipping out in some situations, with the normal advice being to stick some black insulation tape around the edges of the filter where it's gripped by the holder to provide more friction. Maybe that would help with your graduated filter?
Let me know if I can help further, it sounds like something that can be fixed!
@markyl Also, although certainly not a solution to your problem, the 5D3 can usually see through a 10-stop filter in Live View mode unless it's very dark -- it can be handy to allow you to recompose without needing to remove the filter stack.
@abirkill thanks Alexis. My filters are HiTech and i always have the 10 stop nearest the the camera. I only have two slots on the holder although i think i remember seeing something in the box that can make it hold 3 so will have to dig that out. I've not tried it out on the 5D yet as last time i did seascapes i had the 7D so will certainly try using Live View because if i could see then i suspect it will be problem solved. Many thanks as usual Alexis for your reply into how this is all done :-)
OK, so how do you turn your CP in the holder set up? I have CPs that fit on the lenses but would love to put it in my holder set up but never thought it would work if you couldn't turn it. And Stunning shot. fav for certain
However, this still doesn't allow you to rotate the filters individually, which can be a problem when you have two filters that are rotation-dependant -- in this case, the graduated ND filter, which needs to be aligned with the horizon, and the circular polariser.
There are various ways around this:
1. You can fit a standard ring filter circular polariser between the lens and the square filter holder, which allows you to rotate the two independently.
3. You can buy a second filter holder and a 'tandem adapter' which allows you to link the two holders and rotate each of them independently from each other.
All of these solutions are commonly used, but the problem is that they all add to how much the filters stick out in front of the lens. If you are shooting super-wide as I often do (16mm on full-frame, equivalent to 10mm on a crop-frame camera), then this causes heavy vignetting, as the filters start to obstruct the field of view of the lens. (The setup I have at the moment doesn't vignette, but only has about 1mm clearance before it would).
As such, the only way to get around this is to use a square Lee Filters polariser, in the middle of the filters in the photo posted. As the graduated ND filter at the front is almost always horizontal (for the horizon), this means that there are only two positions I can use the circular polariser in (depending on which way I slide it into the holder).
While this does absolutely limit how I can control the polarisation, polarisers have the greatest effect when either horizontally or vertically aligned, so as long as I don't mind the polariser sometimes being too effective, it's the best overall solution when shooting with a super-wide lens.
Love this... love love love it! Instant fav. Thank you so much for the detailed explanation too, hopefully (with a lot of trial and error) one day I can get a photo like this.
Stunning! That's how to do long exposure shots....... I will have to follow you to learn more. Not sure that i could fit 3 filters onto my wide angle lens though
awesome use of the Lee filters mate. Did you go with the metering to figure out which ND filter to use? I actually did the Lee filter course with Jeremy Walker late last year and his rule of thumb was stick on the 0.6 filter and test it out as more often than not, this is the one that he finds works.
@toast I can't afford/justify a full range of ND grads -- I find the 0.9 grad works very well for me 95% of the time, and usually if I want a different one, it's usually a slightly darker one, rather than a slightly lighter one.
Which grad works best on average will depend a lot on when you are photographing. If you are shooting during the day, a 0.6 grad will probably work best, as while the sky is brighter than the ground, it's not such a big difference as at sunset/sunrise.
It's worth considering what flexibility you have in processing, as well, when deciding what graduated filter to use.
If a 0.9 grad is too strong and you use it, you will have a sky that's underexposed by a stop -- this is pretty easy to correct in post, as the sky is generally pretty smooth and without important detail, so you can safely apply a bit more noise correction to it without it becoming noticeable.
If a 0.6 grad is too weak and you use it, you will have a ground that's underexposed by a stop -- again, easy to correct, but the additional noise reduction you have to apply in the bottom half will soften the detail and texture in the rock/sand/grass, and can make the photo slightly less sharp.
If money were no object, I would have a full range of ND grads, but at the moment, my next two filter purchases will be (eventually) a mid-range solid ND (approximately 6 stops), as the 10-stop filter is often too strong at very low light levels, and a reverse ND grad (probably 0.9 again) , which is designed for sunsets (and I seem to take a lot of those!)
@abirkill ah, no i bought the hard ND set which contains the 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9. I always expose for the ground so for me its an issue of ground always being right and maybe slight exposure change for the sky. But in general I've actually never had an issue with it as I have a tendancy to shoot the sh*t out of something and change filters as I go
The 10-stop filter should always be the rearmost filter (closest to the lens), and with the foam gasket facing towards the lens as well -- this stops light leaking around the filter. Could you place the graduated filter in the front slot with the middle slot empty? Would that help?
Here's a photo of my setup with three filters:
http://snoopy.me.uk/misc/365project/leefilters2.jpg
As you can see, none of the filters touch each other, and I can move or remove any of them without the others moving at all.
Are all of your filters genuine Lee filters? Maybe if you have an aftermarket filter it's slightly thinner, and not being gripped as well by the Lee holder? I've heard of some people having problems with their genuine Lee circular polariser slipping out in some situations, with the normal advice being to stick some black insulation tape around the edges of the filter where it's gripped by the holder to provide more friction. Maybe that would help with your graduated filter?
Let me know if I can help further, it sounds like something that can be fixed!
http://snoopy.me.uk/misc/365project/leefilters3.jpg
However, this still doesn't allow you to rotate the filters individually, which can be a problem when you have two filters that are rotation-dependant -- in this case, the graduated ND filter, which needs to be aligned with the horizon, and the circular polariser.
There are various ways around this:
1. You can fit a standard ring filter circular polariser between the lens and the square filter holder, which allows you to rotate the two independently.
2. You can buy a mounting for a 105mm ring filter polariser that fits on the front of the square filter holder, like this: http://dancarrphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/120815_8985_dancarr.jpg (not my photo). That's not for the faint of heart -- 105mm circular polarisers aren't cheap!
3. You can buy a second filter holder and a 'tandem adapter' which allows you to link the two holders and rotate each of them independently from each other.
All of these solutions are commonly used, but the problem is that they all add to how much the filters stick out in front of the lens. If you are shooting super-wide as I often do (16mm on full-frame, equivalent to 10mm on a crop-frame camera), then this causes heavy vignetting, as the filters start to obstruct the field of view of the lens. (The setup I have at the moment doesn't vignette, but only has about 1mm clearance before it would).
As such, the only way to get around this is to use a square Lee Filters polariser, in the middle of the filters in the photo posted. As the graduated ND filter at the front is almost always horizontal (for the horizon), this means that there are only two positions I can use the circular polariser in (depending on which way I slide it into the holder).
While this does absolutely limit how I can control the polarisation, polarisers have the greatest effect when either horizontally or vertically aligned, so as long as I don't mind the polariser sometimes being too effective, it's the best overall solution when shooting with a super-wide lens.
Here's a couple of example shots from last night (one of which might be a sneak peak of a future upload!) where all I did between them is flip the polariser 90 degrees -- I didn't touch any of the other filters or camera settings. You can see that it totally changes the mood of the shot:
http://snoopy.me.uk/misc/365project/polariser1.jpg
http://snoopy.me.uk/misc/365project/polariser2.jpg
The limitation with the setup I have is that I couldn't choose a polarisation level between these two extremes.
Which grad works best on average will depend a lot on when you are photographing. If you are shooting during the day, a 0.6 grad will probably work best, as while the sky is brighter than the ground, it's not such a big difference as at sunset/sunrise.
It's worth considering what flexibility you have in processing, as well, when deciding what graduated filter to use.
If a 0.9 grad is too strong and you use it, you will have a sky that's underexposed by a stop -- this is pretty easy to correct in post, as the sky is generally pretty smooth and without important detail, so you can safely apply a bit more noise correction to it without it becoming noticeable.
If a 0.6 grad is too weak and you use it, you will have a ground that's underexposed by a stop -- again, easy to correct, but the additional noise reduction you have to apply in the bottom half will soften the detail and texture in the rock/sand/grass, and can make the photo slightly less sharp.
If money were no object, I would have a full range of ND grads, but at the moment, my next two filter purchases will be (eventually) a mid-range solid ND (approximately 6 stops), as the 10-stop filter is often too strong at very low light levels, and a reverse ND grad (probably 0.9 again) , which is designed for sunsets (and I seem to take a lot of those!)
Thank you for the fav on my butterfly