Juno Beach Pier Neutral Density Filter Test

I placed an order for a set of neutral density filters a couple of weeks back. Since I shoot lots of beach scenes, I've been trying to get smooth flowing water as it washes over the beach. That's hard to do when you're photographing with too much sunlight. Even if you make the aperture as small as it can possibly be, you'd be lucky enough to get 1/50 of a second shutter speed. And that's not slow enough to get that silky smooth flowing water effect. ND filters will allow you to get this effect. This is because ND filters are designed to drop your exposure down by one, two and even three stops, allowing you to shoot at slower shutter speeds. This photo was the first set of tests and the ND filters did exactly what they were designed to do. I wasn't planning on posting this test photo but then I added some textures and suddenly this photo became worthy of Captain Kimo's signature :)

Location: Juno Beach Pier, Juno Beach, Florida

Camera Used: Canon 5D Mark1

Lens Used: Canon 17-35mm f/2.8L USM

Camera Settings: ISO 200, Program Mode, f/22 @ 1.6 second, AEB +2/0/-2, Image Shot in JPG
 Processing Technique: HDR with 3 exposures merged using Photomatix. Topaz Adjust was used to enhance the details. Final HDR image processed in Photoshop CS4. Scroll to the bottom of this page to download original exposures and settings used to create this photo.

Processing Time: 1 hour

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