When I first subscribed to a photo magazine many moons ago, they supplied me with a filter holder as my "free gift". At the time I'd bought a handful of filters but never really used them.

Knowing that our trip into the Mournes was going to involve a lake or a reservoir or some other body of water (just hopefully not my body in water), I decided to take them along.

In the end, I only remembered I had them two minutes before we left a rest stop at the side of a lake. I quickly pulled an ND filter (not a grad) from my kit and put it on the camera, just to see what would happen.

(f/18, 0.6sec, 13mm, ISO-200, 27/09/08)

Looking back now, I wish I'd taken the same shot without the filter, just so I could compare the difference. It wasn't this dark and I have a feeling the camera doesn't measure exposure well with a filter in front of the lens. Possibly it translates it as an evening shot and I should have pushed the shutter time up further to see the difference.

Still, as an experiment goes, I quite like the result. It's pretty amazing the effect a polariser and a long(ish) exposure can have on a body of water.