It's been a few months since my original posting about a do-it-yourself budget long exposure filter, but - finally - here are some of the results…
To be fair, this is a photographic project that pretty much relies on access to moving water, so my excuse is that I've had to wait until I was on holiday to try this out, but I think it's been worth the wait.
I've just got back from a week in Northumberland, followed by a day's shooting on the Gower Peninsular, so I've had plenty of time on the coast to try this out and as you can see above - it definitely works! Here's a breakdown of how the glass filter unit performed:
I set up my filter holder with a 10 strength piece of glass for a first try in the field and in practice, this required a 45-55 second exposure (depending on the light conditions). I set up my camera as usual - compose your shot with the camera on your tripod, with cable release, set your zoom and manually focus, live view on so the mirror is up. I set up initially in aperture mode - set my aperture how I wanted it (f20 for this) and did a test shot to see if I was getting any blown highlights. When you're happy with this set up, you need to change the mode to full manual - this will keep the aperture you set already, but will automatically set the exposure to bulb (if it doesn't - you can dial it in manually).
Then, with the adapter ring already screwed into your lens thread - carefully attach the filter housing - you need to be careful not to de-focus the lens, move the camera, touch the glass etc. Once the glass is in place - you're good to go! On my cable release, you can lock the shutter button down so you don't have to hold it for the 50 seconds, but on some models you may need to keep the button held down. I bought a cheap digital stopwatch for timing the exposure and then found that my cable release counts up the seconds on it's display, so I didn't need it, but you could use one if your model doesn't do that, or just time it on your watch or phone. With exposures this long a second either way isn't that critical.
When your exposure time is done (I'd start with 50 seconds), release the button to shut the shutter. I have my camera set for "auto noise reduction" so it then sits and processes the image in-camera for the same time as the exposure - another 45-50 secs. After that, you can review your image and see if you need a longer or shorter exposure. I'd add or subtract 5 seconds and try a second shot.
Your image on the back of the camera will have a bizarre green cast to it - this is due to the welding glass. The best results for your final image are - I think - to convert them to monotone after processing as normal. The green cast goes away and you can then dodge and burn to your heart's content to get a dramatic effect. It is possible to colour correct for the green, but it's not going to give you the best quality colour image and it's a lot of work - mono is the way to go!
The long exposure has blurred out all the movement in the sea, and retained the static rocks in crisp focus, just as a more expensive 10 stop ND filter would, showing the waves as a smokey ghosted area. The swell wasn't huge in these images, but there was plenty of motion in the water.
There were a couple of things to report in use:
I found that screwing the whole assembly and ring onto the set up camera was too difficult and took to leaving the ring on the lens. This was a bit tricky, as there's a retainer bump on the Cokin style holder to keep it from falling off accidentally and you need to snap this on, which sometimes made me move the camera and I had to start again. I got round this by adapting the holder by carving off the bump with a scalpel - so it slides on easier.
Also, in bright light I found that I got a weird lighter stripe down the right side of the image:
You can see it above on this test image - and at first I couldn't get rid of it. I assumed that some light was getting in at the top of the housing or maybe down the top edge of the glass sheet. Between outings I modified my set up by using black duck tape to tape up all the exposed edges of the glass and also tape over the foam gap just as extra insurance. This worked and reduced the problem by about 90% and I was able to fix the rest in photoshop. I would also try holding a small piece of card above the glass (in the way a lens hood would work) next time I'm out - see if that improves things.
All things considered - it works, it's great fun to experiment with and the images are dramatic! It's really the most basic form of photography (open the shutter - count - close it - see how it looks) - but I found that made it far more creative - almost like using a pinhole camera.
These glass sheets aren't manufactured with optical quality in mind, so the final images are not pro quality, but at the same time, the kit cost under £10 instead of £150 and I can still get a great print off these images. They are a little noisy, but I think that's part due to my camera and the glass does add a lot of fringing along the highlight edges (such as where cliffs meet the sky) so I had to fix this after - but nothing insurmountable.
I'm looking forward to shooting some waterfalls and fast moving rivers with this and will update you in future posts, but for now, if you fancy giving this a go - it's cheap, fun and easy to use! Look back to the previous post for details on making your own rig and get out there and give it a shot yourself!
I'll be posting completed images on my tumblr page, so why not give it a look if you fancy:
www.re-photography-posts.tumblr.com
If you like any of my images - let me know with a like or leave me a message below this post!
Good shooting!
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