Up early as dawn was breaking I had my tripod set up in the bed of Oak Creek in Sedona, AZ. In the distance was water’s opposite – the stoic red rock formation of Cathedral Rock. I wanted to have the water slow flowing and that required a longer shutter speed than I was able to obtain with just the camera settings… Neutral density filters to the rescue.

cathedral rock sedona az photo

Cathedral Rock on Oak Creek in Sedona, AZ. One of the top ten most photographed places in the country.

In the image above I used a 4 stop ND filter in the holder and added a 2 stop graduated ND filter at an angle across the top right hand corner where the sun was streaking across the trees.

Chris Kalmbach, one of the members in my Cohort in the new educational platform called the Arcanum, has been creating beautiful imagery using some long exposures using neutral density filters. Seeing and critiquing his images made me want to play with ND filters again.

chris kalmbach photo

Long exposure with ND filter notice water smoothed out by exposure. © Chris Kalmbach All Rights Reserved

I personally didn’t want to invest a boatload of money into filters I might only use a few times so I did some poking around and found these very inexpensive plastic filters with a full range of step rings, holders, lens shades and more from Neewer. See the ND Filter kit Here.

Yours in Creative Photography,    Bob

PS – Enjoyed this water quote… “My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them.”   Mitch Hedberg