My 10-stop and VND went out for a test drive yesterday.

[480sparky]

Took a bit of time yesterday and took my two new NDs (B+W 10-stop and Singh-Ray VND) out for a test drive. Since we don't have a lot of waterfalls here in Cornpatch, I used the next-best thing.... fountains.

First off, I like to find the 'sweet spot' of my lenses, and try to shoot at that aperture if at all possible. Result: f/11 at 1/125, even at ISO 50 (Low -1.0)

Not very silky. Without an ND, the slowest shutter speed possible would be 1/30 when I dial the aperture down to f/22:

Getting a little blur, but not near enough to make anything 'silky'. Enter the NDs. Tossing on the B+W 10-stop, and going back to my preferred f/11, I can now set the shutter to 10 seconds... even in broad daylight!

Oooooooooooh, yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!





Kitty-corner across the intersection is another fountain, so I tried the Signh-Ray VND there. I set the camera back to ISO 100 and used f/11 (my two preferred settings). Without a filter, I got 1/30 sec.

Toss on the S-R VND, and starting at minimum:

1/20 sec

Start dialing it down.... 1/13 sec:

1/4 sec:

1.3 seconds:

And finally, at MAX, 6 seconds!

I did notice that the images tend to get cooler the more it's dialed down, especially at MAX. Some day I may try to create some profiles for the various settings to make corrections a 1-click process.

These two filters are gonna allow me to use ISO 100 and f/11 far more often, letting me match the shutter speed to the subject instead of the sun.