Using ND Filters to slow the shutter speed (for special effects!)
CPL and ND filters
ND filters are like "sunglasses for your lens" so that you can use a slower shutter speed, for those cool silky water or streaky cloud effects! CPL, which stands for "circular polarizer/linear" filter is the essential "outdoor on a sunny day" filter! It gives you bluer skies, and can reduce annoying reflections, like the sun on the water. In fact, it can help your camera look THROUGH the surface of the water to see what's below the surface. Most landscape shots are helped by the CPL filter!
The first tip I got from the Petapixel Podcast: only get size 82mm filters! This way you don’t waste money on a size for every lens, and you can adapt them to any lens using step-up rings. You can get fixed or variable filters, the fixed are of course much better image quality, but more expensive to buy! The image above is the Breakthrough Photography 82mm 6-stop ND filter (w/cleaning cloth!)
As far as the step-up rings, these Breakthrough Photography ones (link below) are SO much better than the el-cheapo ones you see on Amazon, it’s worth the extra money, like $34/each, but you only need 2 or 3, at the size of lens filter diameters that you are bringing along with you.
They're not so expensive when you realize you only need a couple! So I have two step-up rings, 82-77MM, 82-72MM, and 82-67MM, covering the most likely lenses I’d use for a landscape shot, (other than lenses that are already 82mm!) They work great, and rarely get stuck with the filter, which can easily happen!
The full techniques on Long Exposure (or LE) Photography is another entire blog post, for a later time, but trust me, no good landscape photographer would be caught dead without them!
The full techniques on Long Exposure (or LE) Photography is another entire blog post, for a later time, but trust me, no good landscape photographer would be caught dead without them!
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