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Comment by parliament32 | Hacker News Reader

>I do this by putting on dark filters known as ND or Neutral Density filters that trick the camera into thinking it’s night time forcing a longer shutter speed.

Author is knowledgeable enough about filters but can't figure out manual mode on his camera?

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Please don't be rude here. The author clearly knows how to use manual. An ND filter allows you to set a long shutter speed without letting as much light hit the sensor. This allows you to capture motion without overexposing your shot.

Pretty sure he's jumping the mechanical explanation for the impact.

Just the wording struck me as odd, "trick the camera into thinking it’s night time forcing a longer shutter speed" seems to imply that he's using Auto and trying to "trick" a slow shutter speed... You shouldn't need to try to trick anything, just set the shutter speed to whatever you want. A filter is def useful for reducing the amount of light coming in though.

Don't get too hung up on words.

It's a common technique to use ND filters when capturing long exposure photos during the day. The scenario is that you know how long you want your exposure to be, for instance 5 seconds. And your problem is that those 5 seconds will flood your sensor with light. The solution is to use a ND filter.

At midday on a sunny day, by the sunny-16 rule you can expect to set the camera exposure to f/16 1/100 s at ISO 100. To get to even 1/50 s, you're now at f/22, the limit of most commercial lenses. So yes, ND filters are still useful to those of us who understand manual exposure.

They just explained it oddly. ND filters reduces the amount of light so it is possible to do long exposures during the day. If they tried to use manual long exposure without ND, the photo would be fully white from all the light coming in.

Thanks for the explanation. I immediately assumed he was using a phone or something that similarly forced auto mode.

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