[davidmanze]

 F20 softened the result too much............

 

 25 secs. made the sea too undetailed and made strange and unrealistic wave effects............

 

 Sensors have come a long way in 11-12 years.......and it needed a good clean....

 

 Add to that a strange mix of colours.......and it's never going to find itself hanging in the Louvre....

 

....but hey..........other than that it was 100%!

 

 

  The shot would certainly benefit from being taken again...... using an aperture of F11 with an exposure of 2-3 secs. max (if you wanted to keep that sea movement).........and taken on a modern sensor with their higher DR.

[chrismiller]

Nice work, the detail in the rocks is nice.

[JJ_SO]

2-3 secs will not be sufficient to "erase" contours of single waves. Even with 8 secs you see wave structures - which can be alright or not the idea

[davidmanze]

 My take is......

 

   it all depends on what the sea is doing on the day...........if there are no white crests, long exposures deliver what happened there... uninteresting low contrast incoherent blurring...........If there are white crests you will benefit from a general silvery "ethereal" look which I like.........So I guess it's best to take a range of exposure times to find a suitable look.........to match the seas state....

[JJ_SO]

Yes, I agree. Also on the "f/20 takes away sharpness", but I think, using a ND filter to shoot long exposure in daylight as I suggested can also cause blurry images: Lightweight tripid, a bit of a breeze or a road closeby with heavy trucks, even the filter itself costs sharpness.

[Brightcolours]

With my Marumi 3 stop ND filter and my Hoya 9 stop ND filter I do not notice sharpness loss, though. So I think filter quality/brand can matter?

[JJ_SO]

Since I have a Hoya too and a formattech 150 × 150 ...  The interesting part of those long exposures is to make moving objects blur (waves, grass, branches of trees) while solid objects remain clear and this comes always with wind-activity. So "...not notice sharpness loss..." can mean "while pointing the camera towards rocksolid objects", "while using them on classic vintage lenses, very sharp at their time" or simply you have the best technique shooting on tripod. And it's made of cast iron, too.

 

The picture above was made on a very windy day, with a travel tripod. I tried to shield the camera, but I can't tell how successful. Another picture I noticed a loss of sharpness I made at a river and the railway bridge was in use by freight trains, so the railings of it blurred.

 

Another thought: blocking light - how do they do it? how clear and "unpolluted" of particles are these filters? As well as bad UV-filters can change sharpness, why not the substances deivering the light reduction? if even a Nylon stocking in front of a lens can blur an image? I have no idea how big the impact is, but I think, as well as light distraction by the filter itself, those particles are also influencing sharpness.

[davidmanze]

  I rarely use nylon stockings now since I purchased a KOOD 9 stop ND filter.

 

 But then that's the kinda guy I am!

[JJ_SO]

You think I once should try ND without stockings?

 

Weird.

 

[davidmanze]

You think I should try NDs without stockings?

 

Weird.

 

 

   Yeah try it JoJu!..........it's tough at first, but hey.....I had so much more free time not shaving!