Just a simple boat (long exposure)

[MattyD]

Taken in Norfolk UK - Quite a nice evening, but light not as good as I would have hoped for. Will definitely go back and shot again though.

Total exposure time about 3 minutes (its in fact 6x30 second exposures blended together for the sky)

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Nice one!
Should work very well as B/W conversion too.

[ned.ward]

Matty,
Smooth and sharp if that make sense, the long exposure look. Great colours and composition. I like boats, seascapes etc. Good work.
Cheers
Ned

[wolfnowl]

Going to be a while waiting for the tide to come in for that one.  Nicely done!

Mike.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Beautiful shot, beautifully processed.

Can you elaborate a bit on the workflow for "6x30 second exposures blended together for the sky"?

[MattyD]

Cheers all!

Beautiful shot, beautifully processed.

Can you elaborate a bit on the workflow for "6x30 second exposures blended together for the sky"?

Cheers...and sure

Long story short - I have a 10 stop nd filter which I hate using (colours are off, contrast is off), so I started thinking about another option, and I came up with the idea of taking lots of shots over a period of time and then blending/stacking them together in PS.

I used a 0.9nd filter and took 6x30 second shots.

Once I get home I load them into PS as layers and then you can change the transparency of each layer to fully smooth out the images.

What you're left with is an image that is in effect a 3 minute exposure with superior colour and sharpness (compared to using a big stopper.

The only downside is you have to take multiple images where you might normally take one... But of course with multiple images I can shorten the exposure time (by removing images).


Anyway...as it happens I'm not the 1st to think of this, and just yesterday I read this...I'm sure this explains the process better than I have!


http://www.verdantvista.com/gallery.php?doc=tut9

http://www.verdantvista.com/blog.php?article8

[Chris Calohan]

This is a really slick technique and I am off to the beach in a few to make some exposures.

[Harald L]

Impressive work. Thank you for the recipe.

Harald

[dhancock]

Great shot!

[Chris Calohan]

Certainly not as dramatic as Matty's, but I went out and gave it a shot today just to see how the effect worked and to experiment with layer percentages. It's an interesting approach and given the right lighting, this could be quite beneficial as another PP tool. I did both of my shots is relatively bright light. The sun was darting in and out of clouds though for the most part it was almost always masked by a good amount of haze.

The first is a simple water across the bay shot and the second is of mustard grasses and sea oats on the dunes.

[MattyD]

Nice work Chris,

The effects a little hard to see, but Its there. I suggest next time use an ND filter and aim for 10second exposures....Take a minutes worth and stack them together. The effect should be more obvious then.

Heres another shot Iv just posted. Still had to use an ND filter for it, but by stacking images I was able to get a 6-7 20 second exposures with little effort.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=84212.0

[Chris Calohan]

I did use an .9 GND, I just tried to do it at too late a time in the day and my exposures were too short. When I can get a decent sky to work with and no rain, I'll give it another go. It did work, however and that put a smile on my face. Thanks for the info.