How to shoot and edit extra-long exposures with a 10-stop filter

In advance of our Manchester workshop, where I was going to show the delegates how to shoot extra long exposures, using 10 stop (or even 15 stop) neutral density filters, I popped down to the beautiful world heritage site at Saltaire. 

If you’ve not been, this is the site of a Victorian Mill, run by Sir Titus Salt, and the attached village he built for the workers. It’s a beautiful place to photograph and both Leeds to Liverpool canal and the River Aire flow through the Factory site. 

The image you see in this tutorial used a 10 stop filter, which means that your shutter speed is increased a thousand times. Yes, a thousand times. 

So, I set up the photograph and took a test shot first – this was a one minute shot.

The video tutorial starts where I look at the histogram of the one minute photograph and realise that I can shoot for longer. The video takes it from there. 

These long exposures allow more water blur and the sky to blur as the clouds drift past. You end up with a surreal, dreamy, photograph, where everything solid remains normal yet everything that moves looks completely surreal. 

After that, we delve into Lightroom where I show you a couple of techniques. 

Using the new select sky tools… These new select tools are probably the most powerful developments in Lightroom, well, since I can remember, because it allows intricate selections to be quickly and easily performed. 

It’s something that was only possible in Photoshop previously

I hope you find this tutorial useful and if you are looking to invest in neutral density filters, then the ones I use are made by NISI, and you can get a pack of three or four filters for a reasonable price.