- 1). Set your camera's ISO to 100 or its lowest value.
- 2). Frame your subject with your camera and note the exposure. The exposure is the combination of the shutter speed and the f-stop. Find the values displayed inside your camera's viewfinder. For example, on a sunny day a common exposure is a shutter speed of 1/125 and an f-stop of 16.
- 3). Screw the neutral density filter to your camera's lens.
- 4). Determine how many stops of light the neutral density filter removes. Most labeling systems list the common neutral density filters as 2x, 4x or 8x. This means 1-stop, 2-stops or 3-stops of light removed, respectively. Darker filters reduce the light further; refer to the filter's instructions to find out by how much.
- 5). Decrease the shutter speed by the number of stops of light removed. Do this by halving the shutter speed for each stop. For example, if the shutter speed is 1/125 and you remove two stops of light, then the shutter speed becomes 1/30. When you halve 1/125, you get 1/60, and for the second stop of light you halve again and get 1/30. For a third stop of light, the shutter speed becomes 1/15.
- 6). Set the new shutter speed on the camera using the appropriate dial.
- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -