Long Exposure ND Filters

[petes]

I am going to be heading to the Pacific North West in a couple of weeks and plan on taking some LE photos and am looking for some advice

Subject will be lots of moving water shots so my question is this Do I need more than an ND1000 would it hurt to have both ND1000 and ND2000?

Or what recommendations do you guys have for LE shots in daylight and early evenings (dusk) for my M2P

Thanks in advance

 

[DRONO]

I have a set of freewell variable ND's and they suit my shooting fine. I'd go with just the bare minimum as wind is your biggest enemy so you want to just frag the shutter enough for some water motion, but not so long you get blur from the drone correcting itself. You may get lucky and get some perfectly still air, but even then the drone makes small adjustments that only really show up when you get back to the PC to edit.

Paris, VA Sunset by Jono Kenyon, on Flickr

 

[Meta4]

Or what recommendations do you guys have for LE shots in daylight and early evenings (dusk) for my M2P

Do some practice at home before going away to work out what you are doing.
ND1000 and ND2000 are pretty heavy duty for a drone, have you tried them already?
What kind of shutter speeds are you wanting to achieve with them?

 

[petes]

Do some practice at home before going away to work out what you are doing.
ND1000 and ND2000 are pretty heavy duty for a drone, have you tried them already?
What kind of shutter speeds are you wanting to achieve with them?

I don't leave till August 19 so I am getting ready to order them so I have 3 weeks to play around with them

I really have not thought about shutter speed that much but depending on how much water movement there is I'm probably going to keep it in the 1 to 2 second range

 

[Ty Pilot]

If you're taking LE photos with a M2P, don't forget you have a variable aperture to work with as well. I think the sweet spot is between F/4.0 and F/8.0 but you can close it all the way to f/11.0. Using and ND32/CP coupled with f/11 I think I was pushing about a 1.6 second photo exposure - and this was mid day with moderate clouds. An aperture of f/11 with an ND64/CP bumped it to over six seconds. Again, mid day and my ISO was 100. I can see no way to use anything past an ND 100 or maybe 256 but ND1000? On a Mavic 2 Pro? Don't think so unless you are on the ground, tied down and camera locked off somehow.

As mentioned above, your limiting factor is likely to be time in hover and if you could get 3 seconds and not start getting blur all around the frame, I would call that a win. If I were trying what you were attempting I would start with an aperture of around f/8.0 and work with a standard set of ND's ranging from ND4 through to ND16, maybe an ND32 but it will all depend on the time of day an ambient light. Start aiming for two seconds and move on from there and see what you can get.

 

[hiflyer201]

Just fly out to the closest intersection. you should be able to get plenty of practice with vehicles of varying speeds. I find that 1.6 sec is about as much as I can safely hold in average wind but results can be all over the place.

 

[JeffreyS]

Depends on what you want to do with your images, and the image quality level you demand. If, like me, you want the best quality images, you will never get it with shutters longer than 1/60. It's not important for the areas of your scene that will get the LE effect, but the other parts of the scene (if there are any) will just be blurry in a way you don't want. As a pro photographer, I never attempt LE imaging on a drone, and I mostly use Phantom 4 Pros.

 

[offtheback]

I am going to be heading to the Pacific North West in a couple of weeks and plan on taking some LE photos and am looking for some advice

Subject will be lots of moving water shots so my question is this Do I need more than an ND1000 would it hurt to have both ND1000 and ND2000?

Or what recommendations do you guys have for LE shots in daylight and early evenings (dusk) for my M2P

Thanks in advance

Whatever filters you decide on take multiple shots of the same scene.Invariably 1 will be the best of 5 or so.I have had good luck with 1-3 second exposures if the wind is close to calm.Photoshop has a camera shake filter which if used in moderation can help.The first shot is 4seconds,2nd is 3.2 secs.Pretty calm day.9 stop ND.

 

[Maviac]

I have a set of freewell variable ND's and they suit my shooting fine. I'd go with just the bare minimum as wind is your biggest enemy so you want to just frag the shutter enough for some water motion, but not so long you get blur from the drone correcting itself. You may get lucky and get some perfectly still air, but even then the drone makes small adjustments that only really show up when you get back to the PC to edit.

Paris, VA Sunset by Jono Kenyon, on Flickr

That’s a great shot. I’m guessing 7-10 secs.? Stacked photos? I’d love to shoot something like that.

 

[DRONO]

That’s a great shot. I’m guessing 7-10 secs.? Stacked photos? I’d love to shoot something like that.

6 seconds, single exposure. Not a breath of wind.

This is 3 seconds, single exposure, again not a breath of wind but that night anything over 3 seconds was still getting motion blur on the whole frame just due to the adjustments of the drone.

Untitled by Jono Kenyon, on Flickr