There's always a first time for everything...

I have always had a yen to do one of the groyne scenes disappearing into milky still water shots. As I was down at Portobello yesterday afternoon I decided to take my Big Stopper filter with me (well actually it is the rather cheaper Hitech 100). Unfortunately the tide was fairly well out so that did not give me a lot of sea to play with and I lost the effect of the groynes disappearing into the distance.

When I came to look a what exposure I should use, I found that without the fillter I was needing a 15th sec exposure at f13. This meant that with the filter I would need an exposure of about a minute. Normally at this point in time I would have cranked the ISO up so that I could get an exposure within the 30 seconds that Av mode allows. However, for the very first time I decided to use bulb mode on my Canon 5D Mark I, after all I have only had it about seven years ! Much to my surprise all worked well and I played around with different apertures and shutter speeds just to get the feel of this novel experience. Mind you I find I get pretty bored after a about a minue of looking at my watch so I am liable to mess up on longer exposures. Another string to my bow..