Long Exposure Outdoor Photography / ND filters?

Dean. said:
Thanks for the how to Dave, I shall definitely give this a go.
The welding glass I have is pretty thick, and hard to see through.
I don't know if I'll be able to see the white wall through the live view depends how much light I have I suppose
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Just point it at the white wall and shoot for about 30 seconds at a wide aperture and high ISO, it doesn't really matter about sharpness as long as the picture is bright, it should be bright green, then just set a custom white balance on the image you have taken and it should make the.next shot you tke with the welding glass the right colour ;-)
 
Have to admit that the welding glass shots I have taken were not that good.

Colour was fine but there appeared to be imperfections in the glass that showed up on the shots. However, the glass cost me less than £2 so I'm not complaining.


Dave
 
Dean. said:
I shoot RAW and I use aperture.
I'd like to give HDR a go but my camera doesn't allow the bracketing feature ( Nikon d3100 ) I would have to manually take photos at different e postures and I'm worried about slightly knocking the tripod.
Click to expand...

With regards to HDR, although my camera has a 3 shot bracket facility, I prefer to do it manually. What I do is set my camera to AV (Aperture, not sure what it is on Nikon) and take readings for the brightest and darkest areas. I then switch to manual and take photos at 1 stop intervals between these 2 points. I then use Photomatix to merge them, don't worry about slight differences in position as the software will line it up. If your tripod has a hook on it, you could always hang your bag off it for stability. Also use a remote release or timer to take the picture, (mine was about £8 from ebay).

Its good that you use RAW as it gives you more flexibility to recover shadows and blown highlighs. Can't comment on aperture as I'm not lucky enough to have a mac :'(
 
nickjohnwatson said:
Just point it at the white wall and shoot for about 30 seconds at a wide aperture and high ISO, it doesn't really matter about sharpness as long as the picture is bright, it should be bright green, then just set a custom white balance on the image you have taken and it should make the.next shot you tke with the welding glass the right colour ;-)
Click to expand...

Thanks for this advice, I'm going to sound stupid here but... Once the custom white balance is set, will it apply to all of my welding shot photos, regardless of how long the exposure is or what the ISO is, or do I have to set the white balance in accordance with the exposure settings ill be using?
 
ChrisHeathcote said:
With regards to HDR, although my camera has a 3 shot bracket facility, I prefer to do it manually. What I do is set my camera to AV (Aperture, not sure what it is on Nikon) and take readings for the brightest and darkest areas. I then switch to manual and take photos at 1 stop intervals between these 2 points. I then use Photomatix to merge them, don't worry about slight differences in position as the software will line it up. If your tripod has a hook on it, you could always hang your bag off it for stability. Also use a remote release or timer to take the picture, (mine was about £8 from ebay).

Its good that you use RAW as it gives you more flexibility to recover shadows and blown highlighs. Can't comment on aperture as I'm not lucky enough to have a mac :'(
Click to expand...

Thankyou for this how to guide as well, when you say... "Take readings for the brightest and darkest areas" what do you mean by this? And how do you do it?
Apologies again for the total noob question
 
Dean. said:
Thanks for this advice, I'm going to sound stupid here but... Once the custom white balance is set, will it apply to all of my welding shot photos, regardless of how long the exposure is or what the ISO is, or do I have to set the white balance in accordance with the exposure settings ill be using?
Click to expand...

As long as you set the white balance to the custom setting every time you have the welding glass on, your pictures will always have the same colour cast. ISO and exposure time won't alter the colour balance, as I have learned, its much much better to use lowest possible ISO and compensate with a longer shutter speed then use higher ISO and shorter shutter. as the welding glass isn't designed for photo use the glass isn't amazing quality so make sure its super super clean too lol
 
Dean. said:
... when you say... "Take readings for the brightest and darkest areas" what do you mean by this? And how do you do it?
Apologies again for the total noob question
Click to expand...

You can use the spot metering option (assuming your camera has it) and take one reading for highlights, then another for shadow areas. Spot metering measures a smaller part of the scene than any other form of metering - brief explanation here http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2012/05/28/when-to-use-spot-metering/.
 
hey mate, great to see you getting on well!! #3 does it for me! an outstanding pic! may i ask where did you focus on? was it the end of the pole?


i was trying to try this a couple weeks back when i was down near the river thames for a week, but like you without having a filter the most i could get the shutter down to was aboout 1/6 sec :( also like you i got a bit of welding glass months ago now off of the bay for a £1 odd lol its still in its packaging tho lol i really need to try and find a way to mount this welding glass, as i neeeeeed to try out this day time long exposure shooting :) just love the effects :)

i was thinking maybe some rubber bands over my lens hood with welding glass on and blu tak to seal the lens hood to the glass as to get no light leaks? what kinda way are you guys using your welding glass?

cant wait to see some more of your work :) great stuff
 
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