Long Exposure Photography Guide and Tips: How to Use a 10 Stop Neutral Density Filter

are you dreaming of silky rivers whooshing clouds and misty oceans well then wake up and get yourself a 10 stop neutral density filter welcome to professional photography tips my name is Josh Cribbs and you can join me on Instagram and Facebook at Joshua crypts photography nowadays many photographers are saying things like Cletus we don't need no filters that's what photo shops follow but one kind of filter Photoshop can't recreate the 10 stop neutral density the 10 stop is an extremely dark filter that blocks almost all the light entering your camera which can be really useful for landscape photography because it lets you stretch your shutter speed out to astounding lengths for example I took this photo in New Zealand in broad daylight but by using a 10 stop nd I was able to make the exposure sixty two seconds which caused the clouds to streak overhead and the lake to smooth out like a creamy pudding cup but this thing is so dark you can't even see through it so how the heck do you use it here comes the step by step first get your camera on a tripod then compose and focus do this before you put the filter on your lens otherwise you'll end up like this guy once you're focused make sure to switch your lens to manual focus otherwise it'll cause a rift in the space-time continuum wait no that's not right oh yeah it's that once you put the super dark filter on your camera's auto focus won't be able to see anything so it'll hunt around and screw up your shot next dial in an exposure for the scene without the filter on this is your baseline I'm here at ISO 100 at fate and a hundredth of a second now go ahead and put on your filter Ken stop filter that's more than just a clever name it's telling you that it blocks 10 stops of light which means you're good exposure is now 10 stops darker so you've got to take your shutter speed and increase it by 10 stops in order to compensate so to figure out your new shutter speed you can manually count stops as you turn your shutter speed dial you can multiply your baseline shutter speed by a thousand or you can do things the old-fashioned way with an app on your phone it doesn't matter what method you use because they all give the same result just be aware that if you end up with a shutter speed of longer than 30 seconds you'll have to switch your camera to bulb mode and use a remote which you should be doing anyway now whatever shutter speed you land on 10 seconds in my case bear in mind that you might have to tweet things a little bit because a lot of these filters are a little bit darker than 10 stops if you take a picture at this point we'll get some great long exposure goodness but you might also see some funky results with the color and that's because most 10 stops are not truly neutral rather have a slight color cast to them like blue or brown so you have to compensate for that by adjusting your cameras white balance most of the time you can get away with auto white balance but if your filter has a really strong cast you'll have to dial in a custom setting now that you've got your shutter speed and color adjustments dialed in we're ready to take a totally kick-ass photo be sure to cover the viewfinder on the back of the camera otherwise stray light will get in and corrupt your image ok now things are looking pretty cool but what if you want even more well everything you know about aperture and shutter speed is still in effect here so if I want to stretch out my exposure even longer all I have to do is stop down if I change my aperture from f8 to f-22 a difference of 3 stops then I can increase my shutter speed by those same three stops taking it from 10 seconds to 20 seconds to 40 seconds to 80 seconds and now my long exposure dreams are really coming true and one last thing the kind of scenes that work best for long exposures are those with lots of contrast between what's moving and what's not like fluffy clouds against a blue sky a cascading stream against some rock or crashing waves against the shore with the right scene and your 10 stop filter you'll be amazed the kind of photos that you can produce as always thanks for watching if you like this video please share it with your friends and subscribe to this channel if you want to learn even more about neutral density filters can check out a detailed article I wrote about them by clicking right here or if you just love the sound of my voice check out these other helpful videos until next time have fun and happy shooting

Channel: Joshua Cripps Photography

Views: 1,108,517

Keywords: neutral density filter, photo filters, photography, tutorial, 10 stop, big stopper, long shutter speed, long exposure, long exposure photography, nd filter, landscape photography, neutral density, 10 stop nd, photography tutorial, 10 stop nd filter, nd filters, photography tips, landscape photography tutorial, photography for beginners, nd filter chart, how to, long-exposure photography, long exposure photography tutorial, long exposure tutorial, how to use an nd filter

Id: 5pUBtZr5MYk

Length: 4min 50sec (290 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 14 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/johnnywash1]

Is no one else distracted by the dubbing in the video?

[u/Hifi_Hokie]

FWIW, unless you have a bunch of them, a 10-stopper is a bit much to have as your only ND.

I use a 6 right now, and am very happy with it, but could always stack a 3-stop on it if I want the same effect.

[u/pnw0]

What's the advantage of using a nd filter instead of stacking images in post?

[u/tjskydive]

You don't need an app or to do a bunch of math..... The light meter will still work when you put the filter on.... just crank down the shutter speed with the ND on until the meter centers.