Nuetral Density Fun (NDF) at Yellowstone

[Birma]

Good question! If the camera metered the scene as 1/640 of a second without the filtered and I put a 1 stop ND filter on (a crazy example) then I would change to 1/320 thereby meaning the shutter had to be open for twice the length of time. 5 stops would be 1/20 of a second I think.

In these cases you could actually let the camera meter the shot. It only becomes tricky when you get to over 30 seconds exposure and go in to BULB mode when you have to calculate, and count!

[sury]

Thank you. That's what I thought it ought to be, slowing down by a factor of 2 for every ND stop.
I feel better.
Sury

[jbtaylor]

Sorry to hijack the thread Jeff. Thanks for providing your perspective. I found a conversion chart on the internet and as it is too big to paste into a document in any meaningful way, I created a conversion table in Excel that covers both the 5 and 10 stop NDF. I will just take a printed version with me. I also discovered that there is a phone app for the conversion table as well.
As for Acadia, I have done some research and will do more. Sunrise and sunset locations are being determined and that work will go to the a99 and the ZA 24mm f2.0. Same for astrophotography. The RX1 will get walk around duty and maybe some small town night shots with the tripod. Whale watching and Eagle spotting with go to the 70-200 G and or the Tamron 150-600.
I decided to rent a car and take the 9 hour drive north. No point in cutting corners on the equipment because of airline restrictions. Plus, the last two days of the trip will be spent golfing at Yale and Fishers Island. The clubs are going too. Should be fun.

[sury]

Sounds like a great trip JB. Look forward to the (usual great) photos.

Sury

[Birma]

As Sury says, sounds like a great trip - looking forward to seeing the pictures, JT

[the_hefay]

@JT, Sounds like you have a great plan.

@Andy, great explanation; definitely helps to use the math for over 30 second exposure. The other thing you can do is change ISO in the same manner. 1-stop faster is doubling the ISO and 1-stop slower is halving the ISO. So going from ISO 200 to 50 or from 400 to 100 will allow you to quadruple your shutter speed and with most cameras this will be the prime ISO range. I personally like to get the ISO at 100 or lower for most timelapse shots simply because it helps stretch out the exposure. If you don't really want to use bulb mode and you only need 1-stop to get the exposure back under 30 sec, just double the ISO and the exposure will be cut in half.