Long Exposure Photography course: How to choose the right ND filter and the right Exposure length

thanks to nizi filters for sponsoring this long exposure photography course welcome to my channel and welcome to the second episode of this long exposure photography course we are in liguria we are in cinque terre and precisely we are in bernatsa the weather conditions are a little rough and especially the ligurian sea is a little rough but i love these conditions i love clouds i love rough water for seascape long exposure photography in the first episode we saw the long exposure photography workflow step by step and today we will focus on how to choose the proper nd filter how to choose the proper exposure length at the end of this video we will have a dedicated photo assignment so before moving forward let's have a look to the first photo assignment pictures and see who won the longest poster circular filter skit [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] one of the first advice that i love to repeat over and over again to landscape photographers and especially to long exposure photographers is to arrive to your spot as soon as you can give yourself a lot of time you need time to find the composition that will inspire you the most and once you find it you will need time to try different exposure lengths as you can see my tripod is still attached to my back because before setting the tripod i want to scout around i want to find the right spot for my composition i love to be very close to the water i love to have my foreground very close to the camera and when it comes to compositions we will actually talk more in depth about composition long exposure photography in the next episode so this is my spot i love these rocks in the foreground and i love the coastline that becomes a leading line in my composition [Music] so once i refined my composition i can definitely set my camera on the tripod and trust me refining the composition takes time and you want to go through this process with calm without rush you want to be inspired so come early take your time so now my camera is set and the first thing i will do is to set my filter pouch and my remote shutter release i'm focusing on the rocks that are about 10 meters maybe eight meters from me and i think that this will allow me to have a pretty sharp image throughout with f8 i'm using aperture priority my base shutter speed is 1 over 30 right now my iso is at 64. the lowest possible with this camera i'm ready to take a test shot this is my image as you can see the histogram is fine i could move it to the right a little more so let me go into manual mode i will keep f8 i will keep iso 64. but i want to try a different base shutter speed i want to give a little more time so from 1 over 30 i'm going to one over 20. let's see and you can see now that my histogram is a lot more onto the right not clipping on the left i found my base shutter speed 1 over 20 this is what i'm going to use so the most delicate part the reason why you might be here now has finally arrived we need to decide which filter to use which exposure length so let's use the nd calculator app i will set my shutter speed at 1 over 20 and we can see that with the three stops we will have a 0.4 seconds with 6 stops i will have a 3.2 seconds with 10 stops my exposure length is at 51 seconds and with 15 stops i actually will have 27 minutes and 18 seconds but let's see how our scene how the water will change using these different filters so the first filter is the three stops you should be able to see that uh we are not going to darken the image too much i close the viewfinder i'm using mirror lock up with the first touch of the shutter button the mirror will move up and with a second i'm taking a picture but as you can see the water is very rough and with the three stops and the filter we are not able to lengthen the exposure enough let's try with the six stops [Music] in this long exposure circular filter kit the six stops is actually also polarized and you can see i am moving you might also see my fingers but i'm moving the polarization you can see how the polarized can limit the reflections on the water or actually let them through like in this case of course i prefer not to have those light reflections so i will set the polarization right here i would set my exposure length to three seconds although now it looks like we have maybe a little more light and i think that here the histogram is just perfect we can see a little more movement in the water but is not of course that ethereal look that silky water yet so let's try the 10 stops since i clearly noticed that we have more light right now i want to double check my exposure going back to aperture priority and as a matter of fact i can see that the exposure is now one over fifty now is one over sixty one over sixty with the ten stops is a fifteen seconds exposure let's give it a try we might also have some colors after all go back to manual mode and i will set my 15 seconds i'm checking the histogram and i can see the 15 seconds is not enough let me increase the exposure to 20 seconds as you can understand these process of trying different exposures is very important and it is also very important to do it with a constant flight you don't want to arrive at the very last minute at sunset or in the golden hour when the light is changing very fast you will not have the time to do all the exposure length tests that i'm doing i will never get tired to tell you get to your location as early as you can these will also give you the time to connect with the place to enjoy your process to enjoy your experience this is really part of the journey of long exposure photography this is what it is let's double check this exposure i'm very happy with it i like this histogram and i also like the effect on the water it's pretty cool all right shall we try the 15 stops double check the exposure 1 over 50 with the 15 stops my exposure length is going to be 10 minutes and 55 seconds we will make it 11. back in manual i will need to set on bulb mode i'm setting the remote shutter release at 11 minutes mirror lockup and timer it is very important to remember that you will need to close the viewfinder if you are not using a mirrorless if you're using a dslr the light will leak through the viewfinder and you will see some strange ghosting effects into your photos in some of my previous videos i'm sure that you noticed that when i'm shooting towards sunset not always i follow the recommendation of the nd calculator app and this is because the light is changing very fast especially right after sunset it gets dark really really fast so i usually try to add time to my exposures i want to say i lengthen it by experience so i round the recommendation to a longer exposure length but it is exactly the opposite if you're shooting at sunrise because as you can imagine right after the sunrise but also right before your scene will get brighter and brighter and so especially in a very long exposure if you use the recommendation of the nda calculator app you will end up with an overexposed image so possibly it is much easier to get started if you are the beginning to take long exposure photos during daytime at least with a constant daylight [Music] while waiting for this exposure to finish i like to launch the second photo assignment of this course this is what i like you to do i like you to take two exposures two long exposures a short one and a long one the short one will be between one and five seconds the long one should be more than one minute as a practice i like you to keep the same exact composition the same frame and post both photos we will all be able to see the difference of the mood and how exposure length has an impact in your images post your images on my facebook group ateliophotoclub landscape photography i created a second topic so remember to tag the topic which is called the lep photo assignment 2. you can also post your images on instagram use the hashtag attiliophotoclub and the hashtag lep photosimon 2. in the next episode i will select some of your images and i will show it in the video but i will also select the winner of this kit that i've been using today the neezy long exposure silker filter kit so post your images i am looking forward to see your work so the exposure is finished let's see what happens oh it looks cool and the histogram looks good you can see that uh we have been able to calm down the ligurian sea the water is smooth is a silky and white and these are the kind of images that i like you can see how busy the composition becomes when the water is so choppy there is too much going on and then instead we have been able to smoothen the water and simplify this composition it's much cleaner as a lot more serene is basically what i envisioned when i saw the scene so as you can see long exposure photography can be a long process but i like it very much just because of that of course i don't test every single filter every time i've been doing this for a while and usually i know what kind of uh exposure works for me in a different scene but i still do a good number of tests so that when the light is right when the sun is setting i know exactly what is going to be my final setup and i will minimize the margins of error although happens all the time the bells are telling me that we are done for today i hope that this video was useful and that you will have a better understanding of what the different filters will actually do to your photos in the next episodes we will talk about more advanced uh use of filters we will use the square system we will use multiple filters at the time we will be supported by the use of graduated nd filters and we will also talk a little more in detail about composition in long exposure photography hit the like button if you enjoyed this video i'm always interested in reading your comments and if you have some friends that might like long exposure photography too share this video with them thanks for watching i will see you in the next video [Music] you

Channel: Attilio Ruffo

Views: 40,326

Keywords: long exposure photography, how to choose nd filter, how to choose exposure length, long exposure photography course, how to take long exposure photos, long exposure photography tutorial, long exposure workflow, long exposure photography for beginners, long exposure photography youtube video, long exposure photography settings, long exposure tips and technique, long exposure photography with nd filters, what gear do I need for long exposure photography, nisi filters tutorial

Id: cSYzszAMzII

Length: 17min 42sec (1062 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 17 2021