I am using a Panasonic bridge camera and bought a 10 stop black and white filter on advice in the hope of getting flowing waterfalls and long exposure photos in the day. I tried it today, a bright sunny day with a good breeze hoping to get the movement in clouds I have seen on here. Basically, very disappointed as complete failure, but no idea what I am doing wrong. I tried shooting landscapes with f8 as high as mine will go, on full manual settings and tried everything from 8 seconds to 60!!
Can somebody please give me some advice. I have tried to read up but am struggling to understand it all. Will it work with a bridge camera, or am I simply wasting my time???
Plain, simple English please as it will soon go over my head ;-) !!!
Hi Alexis, I was hoping you would see this!! Too dark and too bright! Can't see any motion in them. I should've kept them but was so fed up after being out all afternoon that I hit delete!!
It will have to be a really really windy day to get a lot of motion in the clouds with a 60 second exposure -- to get really good motion in clouds unfortunately you often need a 5-10 minute exposure :(
It should still work well for smoothing out waterfalls, or seascapes, but because it's such a strong filter, you will usually need to shoot in very bright light, given the 60-second limitation on your camera.
To get the correct exposure, I'd recommend printing out a chart like this to carry around with you:
This shows you the correct shutter speed to use with the filter, based on the shutter speed you need without the filter.
To use this, firstly compose the shot without the filter, and then take an example photo to make sure the exposure is as you want.
Once you have it correct, then switch the camera to manual mode, and make sure that the aperture and ISO are set to the same settings as in your test shot (the camera should be able to display these in playback mode, although you may need to press the info button).
Then look up the shutter speed of your example shot in the far left column (exposure with no filter), and read across the row to the 10-stop column, which will show you the shutter speed to use with the filter attached. (If your shutter speed is between the values shown in the left column, then pick one that's between the same values in the 10-stop column).
Because you have a 60-second shutter length limitation, this of course means that if your non-filtered shutter speed is slower than 1/15th, you can't do a long enough exposure with the filter fitted. In this case, try manually increasing the ISO or reducing the aperture on your non-filtered shot to bring the shutter speed down to 1/15th or faster. (And remember to keep using those altered ISO/aperture settings in manual mode when taking the shot with the filter).
Let me know if that doesn't make sense, or if you have any questions!
Alexis thats fantastic! Thanks so much for all that info. I will print the chart out and head out and try again but obviously my camera has limitations. It makes complete sense to me and is really easy to understand. Really appreciate the advice ;)
@andrina thanks for asking this question and @abirkill thanks for answering.
I've been looking for a comprehendable (is that a word?) explanation as I plan to do some experimenting with this next week -- and Alexis, your explanation is the easiest to understand that I've seen yet!
If you leave the chart at home, just remember powers of 2. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, and that fractions are minus powers. One stop down is a doubling (one power of two) in shutter speed.
E.g. 1/125 is close enough to 1/128 which is 2 to the -7, and 1/60 is close enough to 1/64, 2 to the -6. 9 stops down will get to you 2 to the +2 (-7 + 9) or 4 and 2 to the +3 or 8, respectively. Which is the 9 stop column for those unadulterated exposures in Alexis' table.
Aperture is more complicated since two stops is one doubling - we are dealing with areas, not linear measurements.
But perhaps no one really cares about the whys, except me. :)
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10 stops is a high filtration rate for a bridge camera, is 60 seconds the longest exposure length it can do?
It should still work well for smoothing out waterfalls, or seascapes, but because it's such a strong filter, you will usually need to shoot in very bright light, given the 60-second limitation on your camera.
To get the correct exposure, I'd recommend printing out a chart like this to carry around with you:
This shows you the correct shutter speed to use with the filter, based on the shutter speed you need without the filter.
To use this, firstly compose the shot without the filter, and then take an example photo to make sure the exposure is as you want.
Once you have it correct, then switch the camera to manual mode, and make sure that the aperture and ISO are set to the same settings as in your test shot (the camera should be able to display these in playback mode, although you may need to press the info button).
Then look up the shutter speed of your example shot in the far left column (exposure with no filter), and read across the row to the 10-stop column, which will show you the shutter speed to use with the filter attached. (If your shutter speed is between the values shown in the left column, then pick one that's between the same values in the 10-stop column).
Because you have a 60-second shutter length limitation, this of course means that if your non-filtered shutter speed is slower than 1/15th, you can't do a long enough exposure with the filter fitted. In this case, try manually increasing the ISO or reducing the aperture on your non-filtered shot to bring the shutter speed down to 1/15th or faster. (And remember to keep using those altered ISO/aperture settings in manual mode when taking the shot with the filter).
Let me know if that doesn't make sense, or if you have any questions!
@abirkill thanks for answering.
I've been looking for a comprehendable (is that a word?) explanation as I plan to do some experimenting with this next week -- and Alexis, your explanation is the easiest to understand that I've seen yet!
E.g. 1/125 is close enough to 1/128 which is 2 to the -7, and 1/60 is close enough to 1/64, 2 to the -6. 9 stops down will get to you 2 to the +2 (-7 + 9) or 4 and 2 to the +3 or 8, respectively. Which is the 9 stop column for those unadulterated exposures in Alexis' table.
Aperture is more complicated since two stops is one doubling - we are dealing with areas, not linear measurements.
But perhaps no one really cares about the whys, except me. :)