16 Stops in the garden.

A few months back I picked up a Format-hitech 16 stop ND filter.
An ND (natural density) filter is a dark filters that goes across the cameras lens to reduce the amount of light entering the camera, this allows you to shoot long exposures during the day.
The most common filter for long exposures is the 10 stop ND filter which during the day when you have an exposure of 1/320, adding the 10 stop filter would allow for an exposure of 3 seconds, the 16 stop ND will give you an exposure off 3 minutes 25 seconds....

My filter is an 85mm square filters, I have actually added an extra bit on the bottom so I can hold it without it getting covered in finger marks, also had to modify an old holder to reduce light leaks, but will give more details on this in another post when I have had more chance to use it out and about.


I unfortunately have not had much of a chance to use this since I purchased it, on the one time I got out with it I had problems with the holder which I have now sorted.
So with all this time off in lockdown I now have a chance to use it, but unfortunately not out along a nice coastal spot, I have had to settle with testing it on the children in the garden.

For these photo I used a Fuji X-T1 and Samyang 12mm f2 lens


Photo 1
Children jumping on trampoline

ISO 200 - f2 - 20 Seconds
I did also do a 3 minute 30 second exposure of this, but the children had completely vanished due to the extremely long exposure.



Photo 2

Children trying to stay still for 20 seconds

ISO 200 - f2 - 20 Seconds





Photo 3

Hanging the washing out

ISO 200 - f2 - 25 Seconds




Photo 4 

Dog getting his hair cut

ISO 400 - f2 - 20 Seconds





Photo 5 

Dog still getting his hair cut

ISO 400 - f2 - 30 Seconds




Photo 6

Washing drying

ISO 200 - f2 - 20 Seconds





Photo 7

Me on the children's trampoline

For the next 2 I was trying to see how much shorter I could get the exposures by adjusting the ISO levels.
the first photo had an ISO setting of 1600 giving me an exposure of 2.3 seconds and the second had an ISO of 6400 giving me an exposure of 0.4 seconds

ISO 1600 - f2 - 2.3 Seconds





Photo 8

ISO 6400 - f2 - 0.4 Seconds





Hope you enjoyed these and finding yourself enough things to keep you busy if you are currently locked down and in isolation.

Hopefully we will be allowed back out into the wild in the next few weeks / months and I can get some more shots with this filter and give an in-depth review and better sample images.




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