Using a ND filter to blur water

Water, that is what I have had in mind for some time.

I bought a variable neutral density filter during autumn with a single goal in mind and that was to start working with landscape photography and in particular landscape coupled with water.

I feel that I have a decent grasp of how to work with a neutral density filter, but this was actually the first time I used it. The theory behind this filter is that you reduce the amount of light entering the lens thus making it possible to use slow shutter speed to capture the soft blur of water and still not burn the highlights.

So when we, me and Maria, decided to go and visit her father in Nossebro this weekend, then I thought I should bring the ND filter with me. I thought there would be a decent amount of water in Nossan making it an ideal time trying the filter.

As I said before I bought the filter during autumn and the reasoning behind that was that I was hoping for autumn storms. The storms didn’t materialize during autumn and when they arrived later during the winter, then I didn’t have the possibility to go out and chase them. But today I had the time to do my first field testing of the ND filter. I used it with my normal zoom, 24-70mm, as I thought that lens would give me the possibility to work both with intimate landscape and normal landscape photography.

We went to Främmestad, not far from Nossebro, where I knew there were a couple of rapids that I could work with. I was of course not sure what I could expect of the place as I only had been there during summer.

It was a lot of trial and error when I got there as I wanted to get the right effect on the flowing water. I tried many different settings as I wanted to produce different type of pictures. They main target for me was to get back with pictures of soft water together with sharp objects.

I think I nailed it pretty decently, particularly being the first time I tried this. The overcast made things easier as bright sunshine would have meant faster shutter speed even with the ND filter.

I hope you will enjoy my first try capturing soft water flowing at the rapids in Främmestad.