RIP, my beautiful 10-stop ND

King4aDay

King4aDay

King4aDay

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Joined
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Well, after a disastrous trip to Donna Nook on the weekend I decided to stop off at Selby power station on the way home to get some gritty industrial shots that suited my mood! Sadly, I only got a couple off before my frozen fingers managed to terminally drop my beloved 10 stop ND filter on the only pebble in the entire field :mad:

So here it is, it's last ever shot. Annoyingly, I think I prefer the shot without it!

With:

Selby_by_HairyToes.jpg


Without:

Selby_too_by_HairyToes.jpg
 
I managed to bounce my ND10 off some boulders some months ago. Miraculously it managed to only land on the metal rim. Damn shame though Tom. You know what it mean though; You now need to do like me and get custom Lee filters made. Ive now got; ND15, ND6 and ND3 made although the ND15 is too thick so im going to have to modify it to fit the filter holder. :)
 
Erm, cost me erm.. nothing.;) Got them off a guy who makes them for a living. Genuine custom Lee ones are about £80 though. Yeah, ive had quite severe flare problems. It doesn't seem to be casuing ghosting with light spilling in, but as ive had to stack the filters, light seem to be bouncing around causing flare. Im going to buy a Lee hood or make one to see if that fixes the problem.
 
I would have thought if they are custom Lee's that they are a) mega bucks and b) a perfect fit.

*edit* my typing fingers are slow!

Lucky bugger MK getting them for a pint! Stacking filters is always going to give you a headache though.

Panzer
 
MichaelHo said:
I thought a ND filter made the shot darker? How comes in this pic it looks lighter?
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Because you just use a longer exposure to compensate. I say compensate, but that's the idea behind using such a filter; to give you a longer exposure.
 
MichaelHo said:
ah cool, I get it now. So its just as bright but takes in less detail?
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Using the ND filter means that less light is entering the lens at any one time. Therefor the shutter speed for a currect exposure lengthens (from 1/90th of a second to 8 seconds in the shots above). Using a longer exposure is what creates the 'smooth' look of the steam from the towers.
 
Hmm, I'm tempted to get an ND now. Might get some interesting shots of town from a good vantage point I know of. Getting permission to go up there however, is another thing :D
 
Messiah Khan said:
Ive now got; ND15, ND6 and ND3 made although the ND15 is too thick so im going to have to modify it to fit the filter holder. :)
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Inspired by your post, I was looking around for dark ND filters and found this:

http://www.hoyafilter.com/products/hoya/oef-07.html

The web page implies that you can shoot sunspots with just this filter and a zoom.

Can't find anyone that stocks them in the uk though...

Andrew
 
Gaffer said:
Inspired by your post, I was looking around for dark ND filters and found this:

http://www.hoyafilter.com/products/hoya/oef-07.html

The web page implies that you can shoot sunspots with just this filter and a zoom.

Can't find anyone that stocks them in the uk though...

Andrew
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B&W do a 10stop one which is the one King4aDay had. That Hoya one is a 'mere' 9 stops. Remember that each stop will double the time of the exposure. So if you got 30 seconds with a 9 stop, it would be 1 minute with a 10 stop or 32 minutes with a 15 stop. :D
 
Messiah Khan said:
B&W do a 10stop one which is the one King4aDay had. That Hoya one is a 'mere' 9 stops. Remember that each stop will double the time of the exposure. So if you got 30 seconds with a 9 stop, it would be 1 minute with a 10 stop or 32 minutes with a 15 stop. :D
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Yep It is long exposures I want to play with. I'm looking for an exposure time between "10's of minutes" and "a few hours".

This looks like just the ticket:

http://www.schneideroptics.com/ecommerce/CatalogItemDetail.aspx?CID=669&IID=3210

Assuming that OcUK don't sell them, can you drop me a line to [email protected] to suggest where I might find them?

Thanks,

Andrew
 
I tend to end with around 2 minute exposures in daylight with ISO100, f22 with the 10stop. One problem however is if you want to go over this you are going to need some serious battery power. You also have the problem of noise. With digital you don't have repricocity failure, but you do have increased noise over long exposures (due to sensor heat etc). So if you really want to get into really long exposures, medium or large format film is the way to go. Having said that, you can still get great results from digital. As for the filter, thats nearly the one we're talking about. the one me and King4aDay have is the;

http://www.schneideroptics.com/ecommerce/CatalogItemDetail.aspx?CID=605&IID=3551

Ive got the 52mm version, and I think Tom had the 72mm version? Unfortunately I can't tell you where you can get it as they are sold at camera shops which would be classed as competitors. Google is your friend for this im afraid.
 
King4aDay said:
77mm actually for the 10-20.
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I could have guessed that really couldn't I.

iGiDK said:
Yeah I've got that as well (77mm)

I find that long exposures with the 10stop ND can sometimes leave a pinkish cast in the image, easily corrected in PP if you shoot RAW though.
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Yeah, I think your going to suffer that no matter what with something this dense. I doubt you can get a truly neutral 10stop+ I haven't tried it yet, but I was warned that the 15stop is going to give a severe cast, and is actually pushing towards a slight IR filter. Doesn't really bother me though as im intending to use it for B&W or toned long exposure sea scapes. :)
 
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