Long Exposures & Filters 3

For the last part of this post series dedicated to Long Exposures I wanted to give a brief overview of the equipment I am using at the moment, and also go through one photo from start to finish, from the idea to the finished product. 

By now you know I have chosen to go for the Lee Filters system, and the main reason I made that choice.  I got their Seven5 system, designed for Compact System Cameras, which is a lot smaller and slightly cheaper also. There is a trade off however, specially if you are using Fujifilm X cameras, the maximum thread size is 72mm and at that point vignetting is an issue for wide lenses. So some care is needed when pairing this with the wonderful Fujinon 10-24mm.

For my first field test with the filters I picked up my trusty X-PRO1, paired with the 18mm prime lens and a GorillaPod Focus, and set off to the Western side of the Isle of Dogs to capture some nice views of the Thames. This has become my lightest setup for capturing long exposures in the city, where you can always find a place to put the GorillaPod on, the 18mm is just wide enough, and it all fits on a bag made to carry one DSLR with a single lens. I chose the spot because at that time of the day the sun won't be in the frame and will give a great contrast with the clouds. The traffic on the river will add lots of money movement to the water, and might result in some interesting subjects coming into the frame.

When choosing my composition, I wanted to have a stationary object in the foreground, and ideally in the river like the post you can see on the right side of the frame. The railings gave me a support for my GorillaPod, and I thought would also add some interest to the foreground. After the camera as in place, I started taking some test shots, still with no filters, so I could get base values for exposure. At this time I shot a few frames capturing some passing boats, which I thought might come in handy later. At this point exposure values were 1/250s @ f/11, ISO200.

breaking the stillness of the thames
25s @ f/11, ISO 200

Since at this point I only have a couple of ND grads (Neutral Density graduated), namely the 0.9 hard, and 0.6 soft, the choice here was simple. With a clear line dividing the sky from the ground, the hard grad was the initial choice. The bright cloudy sky was just about 4 stops brighter than the river, which makes the 0.9 also the best choice. With the ND grad in place, I took a few more shots to evaluate its positioning and overall exposure, before I got the BigStopper out.

Placing the BigStopper in front my lens drops the exposure by 10 stops, which my camera meter was able to tell me would be 15s @ f/11, which I used as the starting point for the final exposure value. Dialling those values in manual mode, and reviewing the test shot it looked like a good image. But looking into the histogram, there still was more information I could get in the photo, so I pushed the exposure up until the highlights began to clip. This got me to the photo final exposure of 25s,and a very smooth water texture but still not enough to blur the clouds.

Post processing here was actually very simple. Like normal I start off in Lightroom to get as much information as possible from the RAW file, by flattening the whites and blacks a small amount, and since the BigStopper leaves a light cool color cast, also warm-up the image using the White-Balance slider. Although the end result was a black and white photo, I always start with a flat and calibrated color image.

In this image, I thought that the color didn't add anything interesting to the mix, and by making it Black & White it would accentuate the graphical nature of the few elements present in the foreground. With the bold clouds in the sky as a source of drama to offset the stillness of the water. The conversion was made in Lightroom also, using it's inbuilt Black & White Mix tool to darken the blue in the skies and lighten the greens of the trees on the other side of the river.

I also applied the same settings to another image I had taken which featured a fast boat streaking through the river, so that both images could be transferred as layers into Photoshop.

Inside Photoshop, I added the streaking boat and water trail to my main image, before starting the final touch ups. Since this would be a small detail on the end image, I thought that it would not be distracting to add it, and would offer some interest when the viewer looked more intently at the finished image. Next I used the Orton effect to add a bit of a glow effect to water, and used Nik Silver Efex Pro to add more drama to the sky.

That is the whole story of this image, which actually took longer to write than it took to actually take the image and process it, but might be due to my very slow writing!
Hope this was of some value to any readers, and for now I'll stop with these very long posts. Any comments and questions are welcomed, and I'll do my best to get back to you promptly.

APN

-- Gear 
Fujifilm X-PRO1 
Fujifilm XF 18mmF2 R 
GorillaPod Focus tripod
Filters : Lee Seven5 Big Stopper + 0.9 hard ND
-- Post 
Lightroom : Initial tone and final crop. 
Photoshop: Clean up and sharpening. 
NikCollection Silver Efex Pro : Toning and Detail extraction.

Long Exposures & Filters 2

Last week's post around filters and long exposures was mainly about the filter hardware and a brief report on the meetup where I got to play around with good quality filters. This week I wanted to get a bit more into the thought process around creating long exposures, and what I was trying to achieve during the meetup.
So let’s start with the why of using long exposures. What am I trying to capture with the long exposure that is so different and appealing that makes me buy more expensive gear, carry around a heavy tripod and spend long periods of time in a single place and produce a tiny amount of photos?
The answer to that is twofold and at first glance contrasting. On one side I want to capture the passage of time, often at a scale the human eye can’t capture, and get an image with a strong sense of movement. On the other side I want to capture the lack of movement, the stillness of the world at a geological level.
Both are a manipulation of time in a medium that is usually associated with the capture of the instant, but has since its inception been capturing the passage of time through its subjects.

first try

25s @ f/22, ISO 200

The image above shows my first attempt at the long exposure on the meetup. I was trying ascertain above all the quality of image I could get with the equipment on hand. This image is good at showing that there is no real loss in image quality, colours don’t have a very strong cast and that can be easily corrected in Lightroom. No loss of detail on the static objects, and has an even exposure across the frame with no vignetting or light leaking in. But as a photograph, it has plenty of faults.
The way to show the passage of time in a single picture is the juxtaposition of immovable subjects with fast moving subjects. In this case the fast moving waves of the river, and slow moving clouds, against the stationary stones at the water’s edge and buildings.
For a greater effect you should give more emphasis to the juxtaposition by framing more tightly on the waters edge, or on the buildings and sky.

the ghost photographer

30s @ f/14, ISO 200

On this second image, taken about an hour after the previous, I was more at ease with technical aspects and was experimenting more with composition and subjects. I decided to create a ghost using a fellow photographer in the frame, to add to the movement of the Sky. Usually this ghost effect is not desirable, but I thought it would be playful to use it and also get more experience with side effects of long exposures. 
So for me the meetup was a great success, with the hands on experience, just enough guidance to help us not to completely waste our time trying to figure out the gear. But a lot of liberty to wander around the location, with plenty of time to figure out the best use of the filter system and our own cameras to get the best out of the day. And the weather helped, which is not always the case in London.

I was so impressed that I have acquired the basic Lee Filters system for my own usage, but more on that on the third part of this series of posts later on this week.

-- Gear 
Fujifilm X-T1 
Fujifilm XF10-24mmF4 R OIS
MEFOTO Backpacker tripod
Lee Filters : Big Stopper + 0.6 soft ND
-- Post 
Lightroom : Initial tone and final crop. 
Photoshop: Clean up and sharpening. 
NikCollection Color Efex Pro 4: Toning and Detail extraction.

Long Exposures & Filters

Under the Millennium Bridge

For years I've been playing around, and sometimes actually experimenting, with a myriad of filters.
I started deliberately taking photos in the last days of film, and at that time, my use of filters was to try and get a decent exposure. Exposure latitude of negative film is OK, but with slides it is very small. And there was no way to combine different exposures into a single image.
With the switch to digital, graduated filters were no longer a necessity, since I could compose exposures in post. And HDR only made this even less of an issue, with lots of other problems, mainly taste. 
In the last few years I started getting interested in filters, but now with a different goal. Getting images of crowded places that looked empty, and capturing movement of clouds and water was what drove be back to filters. 
I've started playing around with some cheap systems, like Cokin and XCSource, and was always disappointed with my results. And cautious of making the big jump to the Lee Filters system.

Price difference is huge! The XCSource full kit is £12, while just the cheapest Lee Filter holder will set you back around £60, and for that you get no filter at all. But the quality difference is even greater than the price. Cokin and XCSource are all plastic affairs, and Lee is all about metal and glass.
Last Saturday I had the chance to try out the Lee system, at a meetup ran by the London Photographic meetup group, and was blown away by their build and image quality. Alex and Lloyd gave a nice introduction to the uses and usage of the various filters available, and some hands on practice followed on a great location. Taking advantage of the Thames low tide, we went under the Millennium Bridge, which gave us a great view of the southbank with the Shard and Tate Modern building dominating the landscape. The river, and the clouds in the sky, provided the movement to contrast with the stillness of the buildings and bridges.
I highly recommend doing this specific meetup if you would like to experiment around with filters for the first time, or if you want to try out the quality of the Lee Filter system. I also intend to participate in other meetups that this group runs regularly. Check them out if you are in London and like photography.

20s @ f/14, ISO 200
-- Gear 
Fujifilm X-T1 
Fujifilm XF10-24mmF4 R OIS 
MEFOTO Backpacker tripod
Lee Filters : Big Stopper + 0.6 soft ND
-- Post 
Lightroom : Initial tone and final crop. 
Photoshop: Clean up and sharpening. 
NikCollection Color Efex Pro 4: Toning and Detail extraction.