I Love Innovation

I have mentioned many times before that "it is a wonderful time to be a photographer”.  Usually I’m referencing the evolution and innovation of software, but today I’m talking about filters.  Many people probably think that with the advent of digital photography you can apply filters in software.   In some cases this is correct,  but every serious photographer I know believes in getting it right in camera, regardless of how much work they plan to do later in the digital darkroom.



The innovation I’m talking about is so simple, I wonder why it took so long.   Perhaps a decade ago the Variable Neutral Density Filter was invented and then copied by several others and often advertised as offering between 2 and 8 stops of light reduction.   The dirty little secret is none of these gives you 8 stops of light reduction before what I call the butterfly effect happens.  After turning between half and three quarters of the indicated range printed on the side of the filter, you end up with an uneven darkness that roughly resembles the shape of butterfly wings. Obviously, this effect is not photogenic.   I have never taken the time to actually calculate how many useful stops of light reduction I get when using one of these old style variable ND filters, but I stopped carrying one in my bag and instead started carrying a 5 and 10 stop ND filter instead.  After we switched most of our filter use to Breakthrough, I started carrying a 3, 6, and 10 stop filter in addition to a circular polarizer. 



So let’s get back to what impressed me about the Benro Variable ND Filter.   It has physical limits on the start and stop position of the filter. You just can't move it beyond its designed range of use.  The Benro is advertised as a 2 to 7 stop filter, instead of the more commonly listed 2-8 stops by other filter manufacturers.  The physical limits may seem like a small thing, but up until now no other variable filter has this feature.


This past weekend I took the filter with me while hiking White Oak Canyon in Shenandoah National Park.  The filter is fairly thin and caused no visible vignette on the edges of the picture frame.  I set up my base exposure at one second using aperture priority.  This is so any reductions in light intensity will result in longer shutter speeds.  The blog image above was a 30 second exposure.  My camera does not meter for longer than 30 seconds, but at maximum density the meter was showing 30 seconds and underexposed by one to two stops. So I backed off a little from the maximum setting so I could get a 30 second exposure.   I also took a variety of shots at different density settings and could not see any color casts or any other issues that made me question the quality of the filter.




The old Vari-ND filter is sitting in a box at home marked eBay.   The new Benro Filter is occupying a nice space in my camera bag! 



If you would like to try the Benro Vari-ND for yourself or any other Benro filter,  Click here and use the discount code Roadrunner15



Note: A stop is a measure of exposure relating to the doubling or halving of the amount of light.

Solitude

When I started thinking about this blog, I was going to title it “How’s Your Friday Night?”.  The only reason for that question is that I see others post pictures on social media asking such questions when they perceive their location is better at that moment in time than yours.

I’m not convinced that everyone would want to be standing in 3 feet of cold mountain water on a Friday Night.  But this is how I spent last Friday evening and I can’t think of any place that I would rather have been.  Even considering the mild case of poison ivy that was a result of this evening.

This little spot is hidden away on the upper part of the Rapidan River just inside of Shenandoah National Park.   The road getting there is a bit of a rough ride and not something I would want to travel without a 4x4 truck.  The entire evening I had this little portion of the park all to myself.   I love doing tours, workshops and meetups but last Friday evening I really enjoyed the solitude of having this little spot all to myself.

The Return of Mother Nature

This past weekend while my partner Denise was busy leading a Meetup in Assateague,  I decided to drive out to Shenandoah National Park.  My first plan was to spend the cloudy afternoon shooting waterfalls, but I lost a couple of hours due to a nail in one of my tires and the subsequent trip back to the city to get the tire repaired.   I still made it to the park in plenty of time for sunset.  The clouds were looking quite promising leading up to sunset, but the magical light never happened.  

That’s okay, I still had plenty of time to shoot landscapes, abstracts and even do a little light painting after dark.   Just a few weeks ago the park suffered a forest fire that affected over 10,000 acres.  In the shot above you can see the fire damaged trees but at the same time other trees are leafing out.  I have no idea what the long term damage might be to some of the trees, but to this untrained observer it looks like Mother Nature is quickly repairing the damage.