While visiting Curacao during our holiday, I had the perfect opportunity to experiment with long exposures and try to get the misty water effect. An effect of which I am a huge fan. I also wanted to combine this effect with another effect, HDR. So I needed long exposures and at least three of them for each photo. Before we left I have been thinking about buying a variable ND filter, but after reading many reviews on the internet, and learning that the Fader ND from Light Craft Workshop wouldn’t work with most of my Canon lenses and the Singh-Ray was way above my budget, I decided that I should be able to do without. I have to say that I wished I had more cash to buy the Singh-Ray filter, because I did miss it. An on the other hand, the people a Light Craft were telling me that they were working on a new version of their filter, but I didn’t know if that would fix my problems (showing a black cross on wide angle Canon lenses) and it would not ship before our departure date so that was no option. So I had my tripod set on the beach and tried to block some light with my Cokin ND filters. Unfortunately they have a purple color cast so I didn’t try to combine two of these (which will intensify the color cast). You can adjust the white balance to minimize the color cast but you can only do so much. So I ended up with only one Cokin ND8 filter and at the end I achieved 30 seconds for the +2 stop shot on the smallest aperture. But only 2,5 seconds for the -2 stop shots. And 2,5 seconds is just too short for the nice misty […]

We went on a holiday to Curacao and there I found an old quarantine house on the edge of a cliff it was an abandoned building with rotten floors, but the light was beautiful, so a nice situation for some HDR shots. I was the only person at the location, probably due to the extreme temperature during the day. I love the way how the color of the light is effected when the HDR technique is used, especially the shot on the left is a good example of what i am talking about. All shots are three shots (-2, 0, +2 stops) combined in Photomatix. I know it is not standard to have such huge color shift but when you play a bit in Photomatix it is an option at least. In in some situation I just love the effect. I used a tripod for all the indoor shots. Most shots taken without tripod failed miserably, just because of the simple fact that it is almost impossible to combine a good HDR is you don’t use a steady base. Also outside where is enough light to achieve a faster shutter speed it is recommended to use your tripod. Personally I always mess it up and keep thinking that I will survive without. Dumb thought!. I hope I will learn eventually (LOL). I always try to get the best result from Photomatix without the need to do more adjustments in Photoshop or Lightroom. Some of the photos in this series needed small corrections because I used a width angle lens and I don’t like the curved lines. But that was basically it. Want to see more? Just click on one of the photos and you will be taken to the gallery where you will find more from this serries.