Today's photo tip concerns the neutral density filter. To get better landscape photography, this is another piece of camera gear that should be in your bag at all times! It's another filter effect that can't be duplicated after the fact. It has to be in the camera.
I'm sure you've seen landscape photography of a waterfall.
You can shoot it so that every drop of water is in sharp relief... or you can shoot it so that it looks like a massive string of cotton candy! And everything in between!
By the way, did you know that Niagara Falls actually stopped flowing in 1848 for about 20 hours because there was ice that was blocking the Niagara River? Imagine a before and after shot of THAT!
Anyway, back to our tip...
We know that to get the sharp image, we need a fast shutter speed and to get the cotton candy blur we need a slow one.
Another good reason to put your camera on manual! You will never get award winning shots on automatic! They will look like everyone else's.
What if we want a really slow shutter speed, but it is a bright day? As you know, only a certain amount of light can be let in for a good exposure - if you let in too much, it will ruin the shot.
So we first start closing down the aperture. What if that isn't enough? What if we are at the smallest aperture setting - and we still have too much light.
Our next option would be to go with the slowest film or ISO setting we can. That is nice, it will give us nicely saturated, noise free shots... but there are limitations.
Since our problem is that too much light is entering the lens, the simple fix is to block some of that light.
Enter the "Neutral Density Filter".
The neutral density filter is a filter that is designed to block a certain amount of light. That's all! It doesn't alter the light in any way - it's neutral. The light entering the lens has all the same properties; there is just less of it.
Voilla! You are now able to shoot that silky, cotton candy waterfall - on a bright sunny day!
Neutral density filters come in various strengths. You can block one stop of light, three, five, and so on. Plus various densities can be "stacked" for even more light blockage. You could put a five stop and a three stop neutral density filter together for eight full stops! (That is a LOT of light!)
Neutral density filters have lots of uses, not just for waterfalls. In tomorrows photo tip article, I'll go into even more cool things you can do to improve your landscape photography with these indispensable camera gear accessories.
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Dan Eitreim has been a professional photographer in Southern California for over 20 years - his data base exceeds 6000 past clients, and he says that learning photography is easy, if you know a few tried and true strategies.
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