Rodney Campbell's Blog

Sometimes there’s lightness even in the darkness…

After more than half an hour of lovely pastel colour and some lovely subtle pink in the high whispy clouds overhead the sun finally rose over the low band of heavy cloud on the horizon. The world became a significantly brighter place and changed all that.

I’d just completed a couple sets of images to stitch into a panorama of the scene (just before sunrise). I tried a couple quick images just as the sun peeked over the clouds but once that was done I moved out into the field of stones in the shallow waters. I was looking for my next composition – one which would work with the black glass – the name many long exposure photographers use for very strong ND (neutral density) filters. I have two of these that I use regularly – the Lee BigStopper (a 10 Stop ND) and the Lee LittleStopper (6 Stop ND).

Leading With Green

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 20 mm, 259 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Jason was already using his 16 Stop Formatt-Hitech Firecrest ND (for some insanely long exposures). However I didn’t have hours to wait 🙂 so opted instead for stacking the BigStopper with the 3 Stop Reverse Grad for some exposures more in the five (5) minute range.

Adding these very strong ND filters turns the view to complete darkness through the lens. The ten stop ND allows just 1/1000th of the light to pass through to the sensor. This results in allowing very long exposures even during the day – turning day into night, lightness into darkness.

Wandering through the rocky scape I spied this lovely patch of green that I thought I could incorporate into a composition. I needed to point anywhere but east (away from the sun now risen in the sky) so I’ve faced a little east of south here.

I don’t normally take test shots with long exposures – I usually just look at the normal exposure through the viewfinder without the BigStopper and then calculate the translation in my head and then wing the shot by feel. For some reason I took one lone test shot – 0.8 sec @ f/11 and ISO 100. It was so lucky I did – the tide was rising very rapidly so by the time my 260 second long exposure at f/8 had finished the water had risen and half submerged my patch of green. In the end I’ve blended the two frames in Photoshop taking some of the rocky green patch in the foreground from my test exposure and blended it into my long exposure take.

The final result is up the top – sometimes luck is just on your side…

The tide was now rising rapidly and covering the rocks on the reef, at high tide they would all be completely covered. The light was still good (some low cloud was being side lit and warmed by the suns low rays) so it was time to find another composition and quickly.

Just behind me I’d spotted this very interesting lone rock. It was very unlike most of the other rocks as it was more rounded (whereas most others were more jagged) and it had this patch of very green moss growing right in the middle of the top surface – perfect…

I envisaged this shot in my mind – the moss covered boulder all lightness and glowing sitting in a pool of darkness of the water around it.

Again I’d taken a couple “normal” test shots of the scene without the BigStopper and then with the filter of darkness applied I waited for the 324 second exposure to run it’s course.

As before it was lucky I had a test shot to use – I blended in the moss covered foreground rock from the “normal” frame with the long exposure. Why you might ask – exposure wise the rock looked perfectly fine in the long exposure shot and this time the rising water hadn’t covered the rock. However the rising water had slightly bumped the tripod rendering the foreground rock slightly unsharp at pixel peeping levels.

A bit of photoshop blending and we’ve the final result…

Alone

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 20 mm, 324 sec at f/8, ISO 100

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