riddell

ND filters only come into play when there is too much light. i.e. you are already on minimum ISO, say 100 or 50 and you'd need particular settings, such as perhaps you want to capture moving water with some movement blur and you want a narrow depth of field. You might need f3.2 and 1/50 of a second to achieve that. Of course normally to capture the right exposure you'd simply narrow your aperture and shorten your shutter speed, or of course one or the other. I'm using a little bit of a extreme example here, or maybe a more niche example, but one which is still very valid. The problem is that that because you want the movement blur and because you want the narrow depth of field, adjusting either the aperture or shutter speed is going to lose that effect. And that's where a ND filter comes into play, allowing you to keep those settings whilst cutting down on the amount of light. Of course you can use flags to cut down on the amount of light, but its not really the same. If we assume that in this example we are shooting a stream outside then not only would this mean carrying a huge flag as opposed to a tiny little filter, but also that the flag is going to actually block the light meaning you'll probably lose all that lovely play of light bouncing on and refracting through the water. Paul

I've seen a couple of requests for my photos and I'd quite happily upload some. But I've just spent a few minutes on this site diligently looking for how to do it, but I'm leaving now with absolutely no idea how to do so.

Light tents / cube lights are used for the sole purpose that they are basic and easy to shoot to achieve a reasonable quality-ish image for the kind of low quality images that are needed for the likes of ebay. And both tungsten and flourescent lights are a big no. Especially flourescents. You just have no control. To achieve high quality commercial grade images for use in catalogues or a quality website or on ASOS or Amazon (neither of which will accept amateur photography) you then need to have a lot more equipment, lighting etc. and even more importantly a lot more knowledge to know how to take the photos. When you start talking high volumes of products, it then become even more paramount that you know what you are doing, and this work is best left to a professional. There are many companies out there struggling to make sales, and often these sites have poor photography on them that doesn't do them any favours, it makes them look unprofessional and customers stay away. I've seen it many time when clients come to me, and we replace their photos with professional ones. They soon see business rise.

As quality photos they are nothing more than snapshots. But they have a lot of cuteness factor. Paul.

Hi, I've just joined this forum. I'm a full time professional photographer.