Experiments with a 10 Stop 'Big Stopper' Filter.

Thinking towards Assignment 2, I am considering using Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd for my book cover design and am looking towards an unpalatable  landscape image but I am wanting something out of the ordinary.  To this end I have invested in a 10 stop 'Big Stopper' Filter in order to be able to take some ultra long exposure images.  My first experiments are detailed below.  All are taken with a Canon 7D with either a Sigma 10-20 mm lens or a Canon 17-85. I used f16 for my unfiltered shots as I feel that the lenses perform best at this aperture and give good depth of field.  For the filtered images I used the smallest aperture available in order to obtain the longest exposure.  A tripod was used in all cases.

To view large click on an image.

43sec @ f25

1/40 @ f16

The first of the two images above are with the filter and the second without.  In the long exposure image there is some streaking in the sky but not a lot.  There is movement blur in the reeds.

30 sec @ f25

1/80 sec @ f16

In this pair there is hardly any streaking in the clouds of the long exposure shot but the water has been smoothed compared to the shorter exposure.

30 sec @ f25

1/30 @ f16

Again little evidence of streaking in the clouds in the long exposure shot but the water is smoothed out compared to the shorter exposure.

The above images were taken in the early afternoon with the sun out.  Even with the 10 stop ND filter it was not possible to achieve a long enough exposure to secure more dramatic images.

133 sec @ f22

This image is taken at the same location after the sun had gone behind the large bank of clouds.  Now it was possible to use a much longer exposure to give definite streaking in the sky and smooth the water.  To enhance the moody effect I converted to black and white and cropped to square.

122 sec @ f22

1/25 sec @ f16

These two images were taken at Flamborough Head towards the end of the afternoon with lower light levels which meant that the filter enabled longer exposure times.  The long exposure image shows  much more dramatic streaking in the sky and water is totally smoothed out.

122 sec @ f22

122 sec @ f22

1/25 sec @ f22

Here again there is more dramatic streaking in the sky with the filtered images and the water has been completely smoothed with a slight milkiness.

3 sec @ f8

Here I used the filter to give me a long enough exposure for a handheld ICM shot.

I have found that, in order to get the best out of the filter, it needs to be used either early or late in the day or in dull, gloomy conditions.  I do think, though, that it has great potential and I shall certainly be experimenting with it for Assignment 2 to try and get that 'different' image.