Shooting on the weekend with ND, Neutral Density, filters

This past weekend was Thanksgiving in Canada. Usually this time of year presents amazing photo opportunities and this year was no different.

I grew up in a small town called Meaford Ontario. My parents and two of my sisters still live there. Meaford is situated right in between Owen Sound and Collingwood, on the south shores of Georgian Bay. This being only a day trip my family and I decided to travel light, only two bags of camera gear plus my heavy duty tripod. I was obviously hoping to leave the family behind for a couple of hours so that could go and shoot some of the fall colours.

As we arrived at our destination a couple of hours later, my niece was very quick to point out that her dad had just purchased for her the Canon A650 IS. This is a 12MP point and shoot. It appears to be a very nice camera for the money. From the moment she saw me she wanted to show her how to use her camera. I thought that there was no better way to show her than to go and do something. So, off we went to nearby Eugenia Falls Conservation area.


One of the purchases that I have recently made was that of a couple of ND, Neutral Density, filters. The ones I had purchased were the B+W 103 (3 stop) and 106 (6 stop) filters. The purpose of standard photographic neutral density filters is to allow the photographer greater flexibility to change the aperture or exposure, allowing for more control, particularly in extreme circumstances. What these filters can allow you to do is to photograph a waterfall at a slow shutter speed to create a deliberate motion blur effect. This is something that I had always wanted to do but never had the equipment to do it.


When we arrived at Eugenia Falls I first wanted to get a couple of photos of the falls themselves so I set up the Canon 40D with my 24-105 L IS lens and, due to the brightness, attached the 6 stop filter first. The results were okay but thought that I could do better. So, I also attached the 3 stop filter as well. This effectively gave me a 9 stop filter which allowed for a 30 second exposure. The result is above.



We then did a little exploring by following the river back up into the bush, about 100m or so. That is were I found this glorious little spot with a small waterfall. I think it provided a dramatice effect.