Bird guy tries an ND filter and seascape

[coastalconn]

I'm a pretty pure bird photographer as many of you know.. I recently purchased a cheap 2-400 Variable ND filter to play with. These are my first attempts. Shot in manual because the camera didn't meter very well with the filter on.. Feel free to bash away..

1

Testing Variable ND Filter by krisinct, on Flickr

2

Testing Variable ND Filter by krisinct, on Flickr

 

[Radical]

I like #1

 

[eswebster]

a bracketed exposure or nd grad would have helped to bring more light to the rocks. Agree number one is the better image. If we all had perfect pictures the first time we tried anything this would get boring real quick.

 

[cgipson1]

Nice! There is a trick you can use for calculating the exposures that you may not know about. Can't meter with some of the higher density NDs!

Meter the scene without the ND (and focus in manual at this step also)
use a ND calculator (phone app like NDTimer, etc) to calculate the time based on the exposure you metered. (for instance, if you meter 1 second at F11 - ISO100, and then put on an ND8 filter, the calculator will tell you 8 seconds for a proper exposure). Or you can do it in your head.. just using stops
Put the filter on.. being careful not to mess up the focus you set it too....
shoot....

As was mentioned... bracketing is always a good idea... and you can even combine multiple long exposures like this in HDR... Like this shot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/67377820@N08/7908989152/in/set-72157631255921556

 

[coastalconn]

Thanks radical and es. Charlie that shot is awesome.. Thanks for the tips. I expected to have longer exposure times. I will have to try bracketed next time. At one point I was down to low 1 (ISO 100) and F22 trying to get longer exposures. The filter I bought is just the 10 cheapy. I think I have a graduated filter laying around. Landscape photography is boring, I had to wait 30 minutes for the sun to set I like my birds much better

 

[Judobreaker]

... Landscape photography is boring, I had to wait 30 minutes for the sun to set ...

Yet you can spend a full working day sitting around a lake waiting for that bird to fly by...

 

[EONOnly]

I quite like your shots. What I don't like about the first one is that the foreground is heavily underexposed. I know it might look good to leave the foreground darker than the main subject itself, but in this case the foreground is such a big part of the picture that I'd make it brighter. Simple gradient in PS or LR will do the job, I guess.

Anyway, good shots. Take care!

 

[sm4him]

Who ARE you? And what have you done with Kris? :lmao:

Nice shots! I can't really offer anything beyond what Charlie already said...but it's good to take some time to try different things. Eventually it'll get tiring if it's all birds, all the time. My photography seems to have pretty much settled into three areas--birds, macro and abstract. But it used to be almost exclusively nature and especially flowers--so if I hadn't tried new areas, I wouldn't have these nice new addictions.

My sister was just remarking on my bird photography the other day (and how I spend every spare minute doing it...) and I told her that I didn't know WHAT was gonna happen when it got warm enough for birds AND insects! She's hoping I stay addicted to the birds--my macro insect shots creep her out!

Keep playing with these--but don't take off TOO much time from the birds.

 

[Rick58]

#1 is a killer!