Bring Buildings To Life

Learn how to use long exposures during the day to add movement to your scenic shots as Peter Travers slows down with a 10-stop ND filter

In this project, I’ll show you how to bring sunny castle scenes to life by using ND filters and long exposures. As buildings are stationary it can sometimes mean your images feel a little lifeless. To boost our shot of a castle scene, I’m using an ND filter to extend our exposure during the day. I’ve used a 10-stop filter for our shot of a castle across the water – this has extended my shutter speed from 1/60 sec to a really long exposure of 20 seconds – this has in turn added movement to skies and water to bring our scene to life.

Neutral Density (ND) filters work by reducing the amount of light going into your lens and on to your Canon DSLR’s sensor. To expose the scene correctly you then need a very long exposure, and it’s the resulting slow shutter speed that means any movement in your scene – the clouds in the sky, people walking past, and moving water – all become blurred. The slower the shutter speed or the faster these elements are moving, the more they blur.