6 Stop ND Filter with the EM5 II

I hurried over to a park near my house in Highland Village, TX, so that I could
make some outdoor portraits of my daughter and granddaughters. It was a
bright sunny day so I made sure to bring along my 6 stop ND filter. I could’ve
photographed without it, but I didn’t want to be forced to shoot at F 16
because I wanted more of a blurred background. I knew this park had a small
section of trees that I could shoot under, and I planned on using this as my
shooting area.

I could’ve shot out in the open since the ND filter would enable me to maintain
the wider aperture that I desired, but I was trying to make it easier on the
girls. The bright sun would make it difficult for them to pose without
squinting. If the sun were lower on the horizon, I could make it work by
keeping the sun at their backs while photographing, but the sun was going to be
almost directly overhead.

Once under the trees I realized that the overhead canopy was pretty thick and the
available light would require me to shoot higher than my base ISO which is 200
on the EM5 II. If I left the ISO at 1/200 the resulting shutter speed was 1/25
even at F 1.8. The EM5 II has image stabilization that works great, but the
wind was blowing pretty good and the hair movement would blur too much at 1/25.
So, I bumped the ISO to 1/400 and shot at 1/50. This would be satisfactory, but
in several images the hair movement still blurred to an unacceptable amount.
Fortunately, I got enough keepers to make things work.

Equipment used:

EM5II
Lumedyne 400 w/s pack
Lumedyne Flash head
Newer Softbox
Godox S bracket for the flash head.
6 Stop ND filter from Breakthrough Photography

I adjusted the flash power and the distance of the flash to the subject to
provide about F 11 light on the subject. This was close to a 6 stop
difference from the ambient light outside of the tree line. The shutter was set
at 1/50 which allowed enough of the ambient light under the trees in, so the
pictures were not too contrasty. Here are a couple of shots from that
session.

The
raw images were processed in DXO4 and then further adjustments were made in
Affinity Photo and Perfectly Clear

Senior Portrait of a teenage girl under trees using an ND filter and the EM5 II.

EM5 II with Olympus 45mm F.1.8

Teenage girl outdoors portrait under trees using an ND filter and the EM5 II

EM5 II with Olympus 45mm F.1.8

Teenage girl outdoors portrait under trees using an ND filter and the EM5 II

EM5 II with Olympus 45mm F.1.8

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Portraits Under The Trees