ND Filter or Exposure Adjustment

[DavidWatson]

Hi - apologies if this is a silly question but i want to take some shots of water where the movement of water is blurred... What is the best approach to doing this... use an ND filter, in which case what is the best strength to start with or can i simply use the exposure adjustment on my 400d?
what are the pros/cons to each approach?
thanks for any advice

 

[stan the man]

Hi - apologies if this is a silly question but i want to take some shots of water where the movement of water is blurred... What is the best approach to doing this... use an ND filter, in which case what is the best strength to start with or can i simply use the exposure adjustment on my 400d?
what are the pros/cons to each approach?
thanks for any advice

to get the milky effect with water(waterfalls anyway),i use ND filters to attain a shutter speed of around 2sec.wether you use a 1,2,or 3 stop filter(or a mix of)will depend on your apperture/shutter speed/ISO.

if,say for example,you want to get the sea looking like it's a fog,then you are looking at exposures of up to 30sec,or even longer.

hope this helps

 

[JamesH]

You could also just use a tripod, use a small aperture and try that way, if you do it under lower light conditions such as dawn/dusk etc you should be able to take longer exposures just like that.

I have a ND8 but I havent used it much as I dont have a tripod, I have a CP filter which also lessens the light coming into the camera which at a push I use for 1-5 sec exposures.

Whichever way you see it you will need a tripod