10 Stop ND Filter

[Dennis]

I have become fascinated with seeing some water landscape images which goes back a couple of months now. The reason for this was that we are heading out on a camping trip to Algonquin Park which has a lot of water and some very nice landscape in the area.

The one thing that stuck out when viewing them was a 10 Stop ND filter which cuts the light coming into the camera and allows to get those very low shutter speeds to make the water smooth, or even water falls looking milky. I really love this effect and since viewing those images have been drawn to this type of photography, even so I was send emails back and forth with my buddy Don, who also loves the effects.

After seeing these images I decided that I was going to get the filter, but not sure if I wanted to spend that amount of money at this time as there is really no opportunities to use the filter all that much in our area. However there is a place that I know just about an hours drive from home. I ended up with the Cameron Fader 1 -10 Stop ND filter for $100.00. Now using this sort of filter needs to be down right, or the results will not be pleasing to you or frustrating.

For the fader ND you put the filter in it's weakest strength, auto focus on the subject, and then place the lens in manual mode. Now adjust the ND filter to max strength, you can now check to see if the cameras settings are low enough for you. IMPORTANT NOTE... Make sure before you take the shot make sure to close the eye piece most have a little lever in that area to do this. If not cover it up the best you can, if not light will enter the back and you will not get the results that you hoped for.

If you use the 10 Stop only filter, auto focus on the subject, put the lens in manual mode and now be careful to place the filter on the lens with out moving the focus point, and the rest as above.

Now I suggest in order to get the cameras shuuter speed down, select low ISO speed, and F/18 or more for the aperture and then check to see if you are around 3 seconds or more should be good enough. Tripod and shutter cable release is a must here.

Not the best images or lighting, but it does give that water a nice look to it. In this case if the waves had been coming in harder might have givin a better effect. I think that this would work well in very early morning and later in the evening, and for any water falls. Also look at the EXIF Data on the left and notice the Shutter, these are in seconds, and that last one being 5 seconds produced a good result.
These images were taken in Lake Ontario, again just wished the waves came in harder. Not bad results for my first tests, and hope to share some of our upcoming trip using this filter.

First Test Images, taken with Cameron 1-10 Stop ND Filter

EXIF DATA

Date: 25/05/2011
Time: 7:44:05 AM
Model: NIKON D700
Lens (mm): 70
ISO: 160
Aperture: 18
Shutter: 3
Exp. Comp.: +0.7
Program: Aperture Priority
Focus Mode: MANUAL
White Bal.: AUTO
Contrast:
Sharpening:
Quality: RAW

EXIF DATA

Image: DSC7145
Date: 25/05/2011
Time: 7:45:07 AM
Model: NIKON D700
Lens (mm): 70
ISO: 160
Aperture: 18
Shutter: 2
Exp. Comp.: +0.3
Program: Aperture Priority
Focus Mode: MANUAL
White Bal.: AUTO
Contrast:
Sharpening:
Quality: RAW

EXIF DATA


Image: DSC7146
Date: 25/05/2011
Time: 7:45:49 AM
Model: NIKON D700
Lens (mm): 70
ISO: 125
Aperture: 18
Shutter: 5
Exp. Comp.: +0.3
Program: Aperture Priority
Focus Mode: MANUAL
White Bal.: AUTO
Contrast:
Sharpening:
Quality: RAW

[Don B]

#1 and 3 are my favourites, #2 is still not smooth enough for me. Did you use the filter at the strongest setting? With a fixed ND filter, instead of a varible filter, (like yours) you have to focus first, then put on the filter, could you not prefocus, like we did in the good ol film days? Determine your f stop, and use the coresponding f stop numbers on your lens to set your focus. I understand the information on the lens has changed over the years, but my idea should still work.

[Dennis]

#1 and 3 are my favourites, #2 is still not smooth enough for me. Did you use the filter at the strongest setting? With a fixed ND filter, instead of a varible filter, (like yours) you have to focus first, then put on the filter, could you not prefocus, like we did in the good ol film days? Determine your f stop, and use the coresponding f stop numbers on your lens to set your focus. I understand the information on the lens has changed over the years, but my idea should still work.

Hi Don, and yes I agree that 1 and 3 are the best in this series, and #2 not giving the effect as I wanted. Yes the filter was set to the max setting 10 f/stops. When you mean prefocus like the film days that would be OK as this was a manual process and you used the split screen to confirm that the subject was in focus which is fine.

Digital cameras I find are very hard to manual focus on a subject, so in this case auto focus and put the lens in manual mode this will insure the subject is in focus. Now this is done with the ND fader is set at min at this point. Now all that is needed to to turn it to max and check the camera settings like shutter speed and Aperture and make adjustments to get the shutter low enough to get the desired effect. The main thing is that once the filter is on the lens, it cannot focus on the subject so that is the reason you want it in manual mode. I think what you are referring to here is Hyper Focal Distance which with the aperture down low to f/18 or lower should help with the DOF and your idea should work. The one thing is that you don't want any stray light coming in from the eye piece, if you forget the exposure will be wrong as I found a few times with my first tests.