More Adventures with my Heliopan 10-stop ND Filter

It has been awhile since I done any long exposure shots using my Heliopan 10-stop ND filter. I decided to blow the cobwebs off and take it out for a spin. I just wished they made a Lee Big Stopper for the Cokin X-Pro holder. It gets a bit tedious having to unscrew the Heliopan, compose and screw it back on. Anyway, enough whinging, below are some of the shots I came back with.

Hyde Park

30s | f22 | ISO 100 @ 16mm

The first one was shot at the Archibald Fountain, Hyde Park, Sydney. I waited for the crowd to dissipate before attempting this shot.  There were busloads of them milling around the fountain and a rather large wedding party to my left. That's St. Mary's Cathedral in the background.

I have always wanted wanted to capture long exposure shots of fountains. I never tire of these types of shots, the super smooth glass-like surface. I especially love the movements of the clouds, I think it really adds to the photo.

Hornby Lighthouse

30s | f11 | ISO 200 @ 19mm

This one was taken just after sunrise at Camp Cove, near Watsons Bay, Sydney. The sun was just starting to slowly warm things up. The distortion of the lighthouse is cause by me pointing the Nikon 16-35mm lens downwards.

I should have increase the aperture to f16, which would have given me a 60 seconds exposure. This would have made the water so much smoother or smokier. I really love the colours in this shot. Now if I dropped the ISO down to 100, the exposure would have doubled again to 120 seconds.

Coogee Beach

66s | f20 | ISO 160 @ 18mm

This one was taken of the tidal pool at Coogee Beach, Sydney.  I love how the sea here is misty/smokey white and you can see the rocks peeking through and the movement of the clouds. The surface of the tidal pool look like a giant piece of emerald glass. It was rather cold on this particular morning. I remembered that the cappuccino from the local cafe was crap.

Conclusion

I am really starting to get a feel for the Heliopan. I can now easily guesstimate how long to do the exposures for and by checking the histogram and can tweak it until it's perfect. The Heliopan does not add any color cast like my friend's BW does. If you are in the market for a 10-stop ND filter, give the Heliopan a go.

Learning about 10-Stop ND Filters

Still Learning

I really need to start learning how to get the best out of my, recently, purchased Heliopan 10-stop ND filter. I have seen heaps of amazing long exposures using 10 stop filters and I wanted to see if I could emulate what others have achieved. So far, I have only done a couple of test shots nothing fantastic.

I noticed that there clouds in the sky this morning and the wind was picking up so I decided to head into the city. All I needed now was somewhere with large expanse of water. I decided that St. Marys Cathedral and Hyde Park would be perfect location for some experimentation. The aquatic centre in front of St. Mary’s Cathedral has two large pools of water and there’s also a massive fountain in Hyde Park.

St. Mary’s Cathedral

EXIF data for all three shots: ISO 100 f/22 20s 19mm

My goal today is to get some shots with dynamic cloud movements, “smooth as glass” water with awesome reflections. Hopefully, I have managed to achieve what I set out to do. Next I decided to take a few shots in portrait mode.

EXIF data for all three shots: ISO 100 f/22 20s 17mm

In the second shot, I dropped the tripod down so that it was just above the height of the pool and also moved it towards the centre of the pool. There is no colour cast with the Heliopan 10-Stop ND filter.

Banding issue

EXIF data for both shots: ISO 100 f/22 20s 17mm

Here’s a problem I discovered if you get too much direct sunlight, downside of aiming at the sun. Notice the distinct vertical band just off centre towards the right hand side of the photo. I just used a LR3 preset “cold tone” to try and minimise the impact, it is still there but not as obvious. It was rather hard to judge the timing as sometimes the sun would pop out from behind the clouds as they move by.

EXIF data for both shots: ISO 100 f/22 15s 16mm

 

I just love the movements of the clouds behind the cathedral, for me, it really makes the photo. There was some human traffic but thank god the long exposure took care of them.

 

EXIF data for both shots: ISO 100 f/22 15s 16mm

 

Hyde Park

It was hard to get good position here as there were quite a few tourists milling around the fountain trying to get their holiday snaps. There was also tons of tiny school kids passing by wondering what I was doing. Besides my choice of positions was limited as I wanted St. Mary’s Cathedral in the background.

EXIF data: ISO 100 f/22 20s 16mm

 

I think that these two shots are my favourites from today. I really like the movement of the clouds away from me. I love the smooth glass-like look of the water in the fountain.

 

EXIF data: ISO 100 f/22 30s 16mm

 

EXIF data: ISO 200 f/22 30s 22mm

This was my last shot of the day as it looked like rain was coming so I quickly packed up, walked down to The Rocks where I met a friend for a, well earned, large cappuccino.

St. Marys Cathedral & Hyde Park

 

Tunxi (屯溪区) – Anhui - China

Tunxi Ancient Street

Arrived here late afternoon from Shanghai. Due to a stuff up of our flights by our less than observant travel agent we missed the last cable car up to the Mt. Huang so we will have to spend the night here in Tunxi. After checking in and a quick rest we wandered down to ancient street.

               ISO 280 f/4 1/60                                              ISO 200 f/4 1/60

                 ISO 3200 f/4 1/60

This tea house is about 800 years old. The girl is performing a traditional Chinese tea ceremony and later instructed us on the proper tea drinking etiquette. I really enjoyed drinking one so much so I bought some.

                                                   ISO 3200 f/4 1/60

We then tried out Chrysanthemum tea. It was lovely, sweet and mellow. I really enjoyed it.

                                                     ISO 3200 f/4 1/60

This was lovely too and the most expensive tea we tried that night. Excellent green tea indeed.

                                                     ISO 400 f/4 1/60

Hmm, looks like some sort of bicycle convertible. How cute is it?
Wonder if it would catch on back in Australia.

                                                    ISO 640 f/4 1/60

I found this bicycle parked all on it’s lonesome in a back lane off ancient street.

                   ISO 560 f/4 1/60                                            ISO 900 f/8 1/60

                                                     ISO 500 f/4 1/60

                           Drying clothes the traditional way.

                                                       ISO 800 f/4 1/60

                             Fan Artist/Calligrapher/Painter.

                                                       ISO360 f/4 1/60

Seal stone Carver at work. He is actually carving this one for me. You can see what it looks like at the top right hand corner of this photo.

                                                      ISO 450 f/4 1/60

                                      A very friendly local.

                                                      ISO 500 f/4 1/60

              ISO 2800 f/4 1/60                                              ISO 500 f/4 1/60

                                                        ISO 3200 f/4 1/60

Random tourist trying to decide which fan to buy or get both. This goes on for an eternity. Okay, I am exaggerating.

                                                      ISO 640 f/4 1/60

Fast food Chinese style. The food was actually very tasty and ridiculously cheap.

History

This street with centuries-old history dates back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Emperor Huizong (1082-1135) moved his seat of government to Lin'an (now Hangzhou), when many architects and workmen were conscripted to construct the new capital. After returning to their hometown, they imitated the structural style to build architecture along the street, so Tunxi Ancient Street was formed.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), a merchant in Anhui invested money to build 47 stores so as to attract businessmen, which contributed to the communication of the street with outside world.

Gradually it developed into the distribution center for materials in and out of Anhui in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

The street is paved with maroon flagstones with a total length of 1,273 meters (about 1,392 yards), of which 895meters (about 979 yards) is the pedestrian commercial street.

Shops standing on both sides are generally of two or three floors, which feature the local Anhui style of stone base, brick construction and tile roof. The layout of these buildings commonly takes on the appearance of shops in front while houses and workshops are to the rear. Once a professor from America was amazed by the street and he said he had found an Oriental Ancient Rome. Nowadays the street is also used as a natural studio for films and TV series.

Tunxi, Anhui, China

Tunxi, Anhui, China

Kirribilli & Milson’s Point

I wanted to do a night shoot and try my hand at doing night panoramas, night HDR and some long exposure shots of anything spinning with coloured lights, e.g. Ferris wheel at night. The only Ferris wheel I know of is at Luna Park, Milson’s Point. As luck would have it, just as we setup for the shot, the Ferris wheel stopped rotating and closed for the night.

I took 3 exposures for this HDR (-1, 0, +1). I then tone mapped with Photomatix Pro. The water did not come out very well, there was some noise in the shadow areas. I selected an exposure that had the best reflections and brightest colours in the water. I imported into CS4 as a layer, added a mask and with a very soft brush with an opacity of around 50%, carefully painted out the bits of the water that  did not look good.  

 

Selective colouring, I exported it from LR 2.5 to CS4 and duplicated it. I converted top layer image to BW and I applied a mask to it. Using my Wacom tablet I set the opacity set to about 50%, selected a big soft brush. I then slowly painted out just the puddle of water to reveal the colours of the bottom layer.

This one was taken from Milson’s Point adjacent to Luna Park’s Ferris wheel. This is actually 2 exposures blended together. The 2 towers of the Luna Park entrance were badly blown out when I used matrix metering.  I selected 2 exposures and exported them to CS4 as layers. I applied a mask and painted out the sky and water on the top layer to reveal the colours from the layer beneath.

 

Lastly, I did a 180³ night panorama. I decided that the best spot to create the panorama was from Kirribilli which will includes the Sydney Opera House, the city skyline and Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was a real shame that some of the lights on the bridge were not working. This panorama consisted of 8 individual shots taken in portrait mode, stitched together with CS4 and tweaked in LR 2.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flickr Tags: Sydney,Kirribilli,Milson's Point,Sydney Harbour,Sydney Harbour Bridge,Sydney Opera House,Luna Park,Cloulds,Reflections,Long Exposures,180 ° Panorama,Night,Night Photography,Selective Colouring,Nikon D700,Nikon 14-24mm

Nikon 14-24mm with Cokin X-Pro Filters

Got up nice and early on Tuesday morning to get some sunrise shots and test my brand new Cokin X-Pro filter system. I left at 5:00 am to get to Turimetta beach by 6:00 am before sunrise so I could capture the beautiful colours of the pre-dawn sky.

I spent the last couple of weeks making an adapter, out of "PE" pipe, for the Cokin universal adapter to attached to so as not to scratch the lens hood of my Nikon 14-24mm. I used a Cokin X-Pro 121 Gradual Grey G2 (ND8) for the test.

Here are the results..

14mm@f/22

HDR - 14mm@f/9

Vertical Panorama HDR - 14mm@f/16 - consists of a total of 15 separate shots

Just before sunrise - 16mm@f/10

I am please with the initial test results. There is no vignetting at 14mm which is good news. Additional tests required to see if vignetting occurs at 14mm when I stack 2 filters together.

Click here for a larger views of photos.

Click here for more Cokin X-Pro test shots from Warriewood Beach.

Click here to read more on DIY filter rig for Nikon 14-24mm

Infrared Photography with Nikon D700

I decided to see if my D700 was suitable for IR photography. I used my old Nikon 18-70mm, which is a DX lens, as it had right size thread for my Hoya IR72 filter at 67mm.

I set the CWB using the PRE, by aiming at the "green green" grass. All the shots were exposed for 30 secs anything less didn't seem to cut it. I got mixed results with the D700.  It is definitely less sensitive to IR than my D70.

It was quite a cloudy day and during the 30 secs exposures if any one of the many clouds moved and blocked out the sun the shot would be ruined.

All Saints Anglican Church - Parramatta

All Saints Anglican Church - Parramatta

I processed all the shots in Photoshop by swapping the red and blue channels. I will have another go at it on a less cloudy day and see if I get better results.

Waverley Cemetery - Bronte

Got up at 4:30am this morning and looked out the window. It was wet but no rain, a good sign. I called M to see if he was keen to go for the planned shoot but ended procrastinating much too long on whether to go or not. Anyway to cut a long story short we ended up going but missed the beautiful light before sunrise.






There were a lot of joggers running through the cemetery. The wind was gale force and the waves were HUGE. There was massive amount of salt spray coming off the ocean and there was also intermittent sun showers, which gave us a beautiful rainbow.

Conditions were not ideal for photography but we stayed for about an hour and scouted the cemetery for our next visit. We also managed to take a few shots.