What to do with a filter?

A recent trip to Lampson and Basford Falls along the Grasse River in northern New York State for some photography led me to an experiment.

Three months ago, we were all obsessed with the upcoming eclipse. In order to get photos of said eclipse without frying my camera, I bought an ND100000 solar filter. This filter eliminates 16 full stops of light. To give you an idea of how much light that stops, the f/stop range on my lens is f/2.8 to f/22. That is equal to six full stops of light. In shutter speed, 16 full stops of light is going from 1/4000th of a second to a 15 second exposure.

Now that the eclipse is long past, and taking photos of the sun acting normal is boring – what do I do with this lens filter?

Using a tripod, camera release, my Nikon in bulb mode, and my cellphone as a timer, I performed a few experiments with long exposure daylight photography. And most were crap.

I only brought up the levels a bit in Photoshop for this photo, which the colour quality reminds me of Konica or Fuji 35mm film that was improperly exposed.

What I do like is the smoothness of the water, and how defined the rocks in the foreground are. The rest of the photo lacks definition in my opinion.

Same photo as before, now salvaged by going black and white. I used my Ilford XP2 35mm film profile in Photoshop for this. When I still used 35mm, XP2 was my go to film as it was contrasty, and also can be processed by C-41 colour film chemistry.

Back to this, I like the Black and White version better. Some experimentation isn’t bad. But, as for that filter, it’s going into my box of unused camera gear until the next eclipse.