About 40 minutes drive from where I live there is a dragon. Well, a dragon’s head anyway. The dragon pokes his head out of the rocks and water at low tide but is only accessible for photography at very low tide unless you don’t mind getting a bit wet.
Here we see the Dragon has it stands with a normal photograph. You can capture the moment but not the progress of time.
To help you capture time and motion, you can use an advanced photography technique that reduces the light allowing you to take much longer day time photos. This is a 16 stop ND400 filter. Neutral density means it doesn’t change the colour and passes all bands of light equally. The reality is the colour does change a bit. This filter reduces the light to 1/65536th of what it is to the eye meaning that normal shot you took that took 1/100th of a second now takes over 5 minutes.
Here the filter is mounted in its frame and placed onto my lens using the screw adaptor. You have to take great care to ensure this rig is light tight and your camera body is light tight. If you’re using a DSLR you will have to cover your camera in light proof cloth because they leak light in really long daylight exposures. Mirrorless cameras like my trusty Olyumpus do not have this problem.
This first shot is using a 6 stop ND filter and is exposed for 22 seconds which slows the motion and briefly halts the passage of time.
This final shot is a five minute exposure through the 16 stop ND filter and you can see how it makes the violent ocean waves calm and creamy, the highest peaks of waves become mist and the flow of water becomes a gentle cascade of ghostly movement.
We’re about to get into advanced techniques in my weekly Local Guides Virtual Photography workshop so enjoy the spoiler here!
If you’ve got any questions about ND filters and how to use them please ask. B&H have an invaluable ND resource at https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/hands-on-review/a-guide-to-neutral-density-filters
Paul
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Bravo! Epic shot!! @PaulPavlinovich
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Glad you like it @OliverKIWI
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*they do look like dragon @PaulPavlinovich *
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Very beautiful photo and great technique explanation @PaulPavlinovich , thank you for sharing 
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Fantastic! Stunning photos and very informative post!
Thank you @PaulPavlinovich for sharing!
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Wow!! amazing @PaulPavlinovich . Am I right that the filters seem to have a greater impact on the lighter colors, well it looks that way? Also, why did the dragon’s head change from golden brown when not filtered to grey with 6 stop ND filter and then back to a ighter but still a golden brown with 16 stop ND400 filter?
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Hi @PaulPavlinovich
These shots are just wow! Breathtaking. Especially the last one. I love the blurriness in the water. I’m sure these tips will be valuable to many who are interested in taking high quality photos.
Thanks so much for taking time to create this content for us. 
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Wow @PaulPavlinovich what an amazing shots!
Thank you for sharing such an interesting photography techniques with us.
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beautiful shot @PaulPavlinovich and helpful tecnics but unfortunately I can’t use them I always use Mobile camera for photography
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You might be able to use this technique on a mobile camera app @Muhammad_Usman some of them do support long exposure these days and you could shoot through similar dark glass as there are options available for phones. It’s not appropriate for me to call out particular products here but you can certainly google for Mobile Phone Camera Filter.
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It is pretty cool that its like that @Sophia_Cambodia it is slowly wearing away
Thanks @LuigiZ I like to revisit techniques like this from time to time - it brings in fun
Glad you like them @JaneBurunina
Thanks @AbdullahAM
@AdamGT Yes the filters, while they attempt to affect all the light equally do have different effects on different colours - even the very best ones like the 16 stopI’m using here have this impact, cheap ones much more so. The 6 stop filter is a cheap one where as the 16 stop is an expensive one. The sun was also going in and out of clouds right through doing these shots.
You’re welcome @vijayparadkar
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Wow! The first picture is what I will do and call my best!
See, please do not stop these Photography sessions till I can take pictures this good @PaulPavlinovich
I implore you
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Hehe @Ewaade_3A if I don’t stop at #10 I think I will get thrown out of the house by fellow Local Guide and my wife Christina who is getting a little bored of being quiet on Sunday nights. I think she wants me back
Paul
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Please go back to her. 30 years is such a short time, you know…
@PaulPavlinovich
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