Shutter Speeds and ND Filters

Often while out photographing, I like to try different things.  This mixture of things can sometimes be planned and sometime “happy accidents” that turn out to be artistic.  Today, I’d like to discuss a few things…shutter speeds and the use of ND filters.

When most people think of ND filters, they think of using them on waterfalls, which is a great place to use them.  I like to use them in places that you wouldn’t conventionally think of using them.  The examples below are case in point.

These two images were taken standing in the exact same spot on St.George Island at sunrise.  The first was taken with available light with no filters at all.

Technical info: ISO 100, F/22 @ 1/15th

While this is a nice image, I wanted to smooth the water, for a more artistic feel.  The way to do that is lower the shutter speed.  As you can see in this composition the sun is directly out of the frame to the right.  You can see it’s reflection in the foreground.  Slowing the shutter speed shooing into the sun will surely blow my image out…unless I use a ND filter.  That’s what you see in the next image.

Technical Info: ISO 100, F/16 @ 30 seconds

I was able to achieve this shutter speed with a 10 stop ND Filter.  You can see the water has smoothed out greatly, which also gives us a much longer reflection of the sun.  That’s artsy, huh?

Here’s another example of using shutter speeds to create feel, without the use of filters.

These two images were shot just minutes apart, the first using a fast shutter speed to freeze the action…

Technical Info: ISO 800, F/6.3 @ 1/400th

You can see the effects of the fast shutter above.  Most noticeable is the mud flying up from the horse in front.  It had just rained and the mud was flying off those horses hooves like crazy.  I wanted to capture this, so I used a fast shutter.  As fast as I could given the available light  and the effect I wanted to achieve.

This next picture, taken from a different perspective, offers a much different feel than the first.  I “dragged” the shutter and panned, or moved my camera along with the horses, as they ran past me to achieve the “motion” look and “movement” feel.

Technical Info: ISO 200, F/16 @ 1/15th

Both very different images that show movement, only in a different way by simply using shutter speed.