6 stop ND

V-Spec

V-Spec

V-Spec

Soldato
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I've just ordered a 6 stop B&W ND filter, i've had a few ideas for some wildlife environment shots and I want to put them into practise...

Question is, obviously this is going to be similar to sticking a welding mask over the front of the lens, so I imagine i'll need to compose, manual focus, then put the filter on?
Then I assume it'll be too dark for the camera to meter off so i'll need to estimate exposure. (Don't have a external light meter, bearing in mind i'll be doing this in twilight, in the aim of a 10-15 minute exposure, or thereabouts)

Is it just trail and error, or is there a chart of guide I can use to estimate exposure?.. Or can I meter without the ND on, then simply dial the exposure in to compensate for the ND right before I take the shot.

Any help would be great.
 
I have that same filter. I havent used it in a while but if I remember correctly in broad daylight you will still get focus and will see enough of the higher contrast areas to compose your shot. Gloomy day, dawn, dusk, forget it, you will have to do everything, then bang on the filter and add 6 stops of exposure.
 
I've always found the last method you suggested to be the most successful, composing/metering without the ND on, and then adjusting the exposure to compensate.

It depends on exactly what you're doing and trying to achieve, and also how easy it is to put the ND on mid shot?
 
I've got an ND 10 and on a bright day you can focus and compose through the viewfinder on my D3 and it usually get the metering correct for me. BUT at low light you will definitely need to take it off to get yourself shot composed and focused first, and I would imagine the metering will be a bit ogf guess work at first until you get used to it. The darkest i've used mine was when the sun was still about 15 mins from setting (in scotland though, so it was very very low to the horizon) and I still used the camera's exposure. The ND 10 can put a colour cast on things too so keep an eye out for that with the ND 6.

They are great though, I pointed my camera straight at the setting sun for a shot and got a 25 second exposure!! lol
 
V-Spec said:
I've just ordered a 6 stop B&W ND filter, i've had a few ideas for some wildlife environment shots and I want to put them into practise...

Question is, obviously this is going to be similar to sticking a welding mask over the front of the lens, so I imagine i'll need to compose, manual focus, then put the filter on?
Then I assume it'll be too dark for the camera to meter off so i'll need to estimate exposure. (Don't have a external light meter, bearing in mind i'll be doing this in twilight, in the aim of a 10-15 minute exposure, or thereabouts)

Is it just trail and error, or is there a chart of guide I can use to estimate exposure?.. Or can I meter without the ND on, then simply dial the exposure in to compensate for the ND right before I take the shot.

Any help would be great.
Click to expand...

You should be able to auto expose, switch to manual and easilly compensate for 6 stops. Remember, each stop will half the amount of light. 2^6 = 64, so you will need to expsoe for 64 times the auto exposure time.

Similarly, you can auto focus and then switch to manual.

Shoot raw and you can easily adjust for 1 stop exposure error.
 
Easiest way to approximate exposure time with a 6-stop ND is to meter with it off, and then convert exposure time in seconds into minutes.

ie. a 1 second exposure with the filter off becomes a 1 minute exposure with it on.

It's the system I use, very easy to work out the exposure times :)
 
King4aDay said:
Easiest way to approximate exposure time with a 6-stop ND is to meter with it off, and then convert exposure time in seconds into minutes.

ie. a 1 second exposure with the filter off becomes a 1 minute exposure with it on.

It's the system I use, very easy to work out the exposure times :)
Click to expand...

Thats what I thought... so If I get a 15 second exposure... its going to be *around* the 15 minute mark, or thereabouts..
 
Yeah,.. tried this out a few minutes ago, metered a 13 second exposure with normal AV mode, whacked it into bulb mode, screwed the filter on and took a 13 minute exposure.. Only a very slight difference between the 2 shots, although the 780 second one does have a slight red cast to it, it actually might provide a nice effect for what I have i mind!

Thanks chaps :)
 
With exposure times that long, a few seconds here ao there won't make muck difference.

I haven't done anything like this but I would go with the meter without and scale up. Each full stop basically doubles the exposure time for the same aperture, so 6 stops up from 15secs = 0.25(mins) *2^6 = 16mins.
 
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