Sometimes things go wrong

Sometimes things go wrong

Sometimes when you are out shooting things just happen. I notice this especially when I have a new piece of equipment I am focusing my attention on. This was a sunset shot taken while testing out my new 10 stop Neutral Density filter. If you are not familiar with a neutral density filter, think about them as sunglasses for your camera. The net result of using this type of filter lets you keep the shutter open for longer periods of time allowing the showing of movement. Waterfalls will become cotton-like and soft and waves can take on a misty appearance. If you don’t screw the filter all the way down it can leave lines around the edge of your image especially if you are shooting with a wider angle lens as you see in this shot. Initially I considered this shot a failure until I hit it with a sepia color treatment and exaggerated the vignette a bit to give the end result shown here.

It should be noted that when you are buying filters that you really do get what you pay for, Its silly to me to consider spending more than a thousand dollars on a lens and then throwing a 20 dollar filter over it just to protect the glass. My thought is that if you are spending on the lens then you may as well spend on the thing that the lens will be looking through. I always use B+W filters and this is especially true when it comes to ND filters. The shutter will be open longer with an ND filter and any oddities in the quality of the glass will end up showing as color fringing or color casts on your final images. Many cheaper filters will give a purple or green cast to the final images.  Now I will get down off my filter cost soapbox and you can all enjoy the image.

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