First Attempt at Long Exposure. Comments / Advice Welcomed

Hi Folks

So, Wednesday the Postman brought me my First ND Filter, A 77mm SRB 10 Stop. All the reviews I could find told me it was a bargain at £30.

Thursday Morning found me working in Saffron Walden so an early lunch break and a short walk later I found a place to try out a long exposure.

As it's my very first attempt I'd like to run through how I went about it and ask for your advice on the technique for both the shot and the PP

OK so the reason for taking the shot at 12mm is the position it's taken from is right next to the road and standing a little further back and shooting at 15mm had a huge shadow from an adjacent building.

Here's what I figured. There was not much cloud so if I wanted to show some movement I'd need the longest exposure I could squeeze out so F22 in AV mode to get a base exposure time.

here's the test shot




Screwed on the ND filter, guesstimated the time as best I could from the sheet of paper that came with it as a minute. Switch to Bulb and timed on my watch

here's the from the camera, colour cast seems pretty evident.




here's after I've adjusted levels in Camera Raw




here's after I've attempted to straighten and crop in PS. Also cloned out the last bits of branch that remained on the right




and some "push button" PP filters

B&W




Subtle HDR effect




And the full Sinister!!




Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this and any advice you can offer. I'd like to get it right when further opportunities arise

Kind regards Pete A

Absolutely stunning for your first time attempt, your technical no how in correcting the converging verticals is also very well executed

P.S. Any chance you could clone out the wooden sign?

Thanks

Took me a while to get the hang of the adaptive wide angle tool to correct the verticals. I'm still trying to suss out if the amount you end up cropping is more or less than just shooting from a longer focal length. I should in hindsight have tried to fit the whole church in from that position with the 17-50mm

Afraid I wouldn't have the first clue how to clone out such a large area of the image as the sign. I guess I'll never forget where I took it tho

Pete A

Why on earth would you want to clone out the sign? It's an integral part of the composition and gives some context to the image.

I think somewhere between




and




would work the best.


IMO there's too much vertical straightening, it makes the church look like someone's pumped it up. You can particularly see the bloated distortion in the left hand buttress and right hand vertical of the sign. Looks unnatural and uncomfortable.

Lovely colours on those versions too. Nice -I also like the B&W version, but too much straighening comments still apply


The last shot you've called "full Sinister!!" is just grotesque. All the vibrance and depth has been ripped out the image and it just looks cheap. IMO of course.

Could I ask what lens you where using, been looking for a filter or two that I can attach to my 10-20 and 17-70 with a stepping ring
I like what you have been attempting here

Nice work, though I prefer the version without the corrections. After correcting the church takes up too much of the frame imo, and it looks good with the converging verticals anyway. Smeggy probably hit the nail on the head when he said somewhere between the two would work best.