Day 20 – Filtered Water

The word for the day was Water (read my first post about the challenge here – marfell.me.uk/wordpress/?p=266) so at lunch-time (which was at a much more sensible time of around 1:00pm today) I went to the Robert’s Park side of the weir on the River Aire. This picture is the result –

To get this I used the minimum aperture on the lens of f22, the slowest ISO setting of 100 and a Variable Neutral Density Filter on the lens to give a shutter speed of 1/2 second. I took quite a few shots because it was difficult (impossible) to tell how blurred the water was by looking at the screen on the camera. This is the one that gave me the amount of motion blur I was looking for.

The variable filter is a new addition to my camera bag. I had never used neutral density filters before getting this one and had not even read about variable one. It seemed worth trying one though. It does what I wanted it to do quite niceley and it is more than likely that I will be using it more over the Summer.

The rotating part of the filter has an index on it that you are supposed to keep within the markings on the fixed part of the filter. If you go much beyond the marks then the exposure over the frame becomes patchy – some areas are very dark and others lighter. However, if you stay within the marks it seems to do what it says on the tin.

One difference between this and the normal style of neutral density filters
is that you don’t know how many stops a particular setting represents. This means that you have to rely on your camera exposure meter with the filter fitted. You can of course bracket the exposures.

However one advantage is that you can adjust it until you get the shutter speed and aperture that you are looking for. It will be interesting to see if it gives me the required number of stops difference on other subjects.