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Heres two example of long exposure pictures I took. They took less time than i expected (the first few tries were also too light) I think it really depends on the time of day / sun position (the sun here was directly behind). I think, its just best to play with ur camera whilst shooting a static target, til u get used to adjusting for uncontrollable variables

i use a tripod, -4 stop fader and the regular iso, shutter speed and aperture and im capable of taking shots at anytime during the day, what also helps reduce shake would be a shutter release button (that plugs into the side)

oh and most important part, :'D have fun

Patience and ability to work very, very long days!

The real trick is finding the perfect balance to get just about the right amount of blur in the moving "stuff" while keeping the fixed objects in perfect focus. There is no fixed time to shoot a long exposure. Sometimes 3 secs may be enough, other times you may be shooting for minutes or hours. I've shoot 7 minute exposures of seascapes with very thick ND filters, other times the light has only allowed 8 secs but it's been enough to blur the waves just enough to give a whispy motion to the tops of the waves.

During the Summer, to make best use the light, you need to be up well before crack of dawn. I regularly get up at around 3am, out the door to catch the sunrise, stop shooting around 8am when the light it too harsh to work. Get on with my day, then back out again around 6pm until around 10pm for sunsets. On weekends this is easy enough, during the week I have a day-job to get to so available times vary. Take a look at a little free desktop tool ( also available but paid app on iPhone and Android smartphones ) called The Photographer's Ephemeris. It shows countless pieces of information about where and when the sun and moon rise. I never plan any shoots without consulting the app first so I know what the natural light will be doing. Next up, take a look at your local weather forecast, especially the satellite cloud images, they show very useful info about what the quality of light will be like, no cloud means very strong harsh light with lots of contrast. Lots of cloud means very diffuse and no-contrast type of light, which means longer exposures.

Regards kit. Get a good solid tripod, forget the cheap'n'cheerful $25 jobbies from Walmart/CostCo, they'll wobble if a gnat farts near them. The worse thing you get during a long exposure is the fix objects to go out of focus. Avoid raising the centre column on a tripod as that leads to instability too. Water and wind on a tripod will cause tiny vibrations, these make your fixed objects go out of focus.

If your camera has a "mirror lockup" feature, use it! When you're shooting for tack-sharp precision on the objects you need to stay in focus, the last thing you need is the mirror slamming up and down like a jack-hammer inside the light-box. If you don't believe me get a spirit level ( see below ) and watch the little bubble juddering as the shutter slams up and down. You can also shoot with live view option if you have it.

Get on ebay and get a $2 hot-shoe fitting three-way spirit level. Absolutely perfect little "gadget" for judging if the camera is wobbling in the wind or waves if you happen to working near water. I carry 3 around now as I keep losing them when they fall off the camera, there's at least 3 of mine floating around the North Sea off the coast of Scotland where they've fell off my camera, LOL! The little bubble in a spirit level is extremely sensitive to even tiny vibrations. I use mine for not only making sure the camera is level but also to keep an eye on camera vibration.

Get a rear viewfinder patch or make one. During long exposures, light will leak in through the view-finder. When you bought your camera, assuming it's a DSLR of course, you would have a funny little rubber thing that stays on the strap and fits the rear view-finder, it's for long exposures and stops light leaking in from the rear. I made myself one from an old eye-cup and some cardboard, easier to slide on and off than the silly supplied rubber one.

You're going to need some "thicker" NDs. Morning light rises very rapidly, the sky will light far faster than the ground. As it rises you can get huge light ranges from maybe 1/3 stop in the sky at the start to maybe 6-7 stops light and beyond in full on morning sunshine before it rises high enough to give good ground light. I regularly shoot with a 2-stop and 3-stop ND soft-grad filters ( 0.6 & 0.9 ) , giving me 5-stops of light on the sky. I don't like stacking filters but the sky can be so bright in the morning or evening golden hours, you need to be prepared. When shooting over water, things are not so bad as water usually reflects more light so grads may not need to be so dense. You may need a range of NDs, some grads, some solids depending upon where the light is coming from and how the scene is lit.

Get what is known as an "camera intervalometer", it's basically a wired-remote release but these days they have digital timers built in. You put the camera bulb mode, set the timer to 45secs for example and it controls the shutter for you for that time period. Also does other things like a set number of shots for stuff like time-lapse movies. You can get them for about $20-$25 off eBay or Amazon, I buy ones from Yongnuo that go up to 99 minute exposures for example. Canon/Nikon just take the piss with with their rip-off $200 remotes!

Settings, hard to say as every situation is different and you will have to experiment. For example, if you're blurring a sea-scape and it's just a small pier 20 metres long, your DoF is so short you can get away with a bigger aperture and keep the quality up. Deeper scenes may need a smaller aperture to hold the DoF required. Head back to the basics of the exposure triangle when you get stuck. You need a slower shutter speed to blur the motion, so you could decrease the size of the aperture ( bigger number ) and/or lower the ISO, for example. If you have ND filters, either solid or grads, they will remove stops of light getting into the light-box, so that buys you more leeway on your exposure triangle, you can maybe increase the aperture size ( smaller number ) slightly now to bring back a more shallow focus and gain some quality back rather than being stuck up at f/22. Read and understand the exposure triangle, it can make all the difference when you're on location and getting excited by the scene in front of you!

Good luck.

1. get a good tripod
2. get a shutter release extension (little cable that screws into the shutter)
3. get a good stop watch.
4. Bracket like a motherfucker.

depending on how long exposure you want, and how light it is. ISO 100 tops. If you are real adventurous try 25. generally a light meter will give you a ballpark figure, but you'd have to understand the light meter, and usually it takes

Generally wide open apertures go good with time exposures because the produce the most vivid colors, just be careful because this adds more light to already more light you get from time exposures. This means lower ISOs which are better because they are higher res and better film generally. Don't go too wide unless you want a lot of "soft focus" and narrow depth of field. With time exposures the depth of field becomes really apparant at low fstops.

F/4 would probably be the best for time exposures, f5.6 if your really concerned about depth of field. But again, depends on the photo. F8 and 11 aren't too bad, and it all depends on how much light you have and again, what ISO you are using.

Long exposures generally tend to best when there is low light, twilights and night. These tend to bring out interesting colours NOT visible to the naked eye.

The exposure is going to be variable, depending on the light level. A 4-second shutter speed, at f/5.6, with iso 100, would be like what you'd use under the reflected light of a single street light at midnight on a cloudy night, if you were using film. Your ND 3.0 isn't going to reduce your exposure time but 3 stops and so you are probably not going to get 4-10 second shutter speeds during the day. Maybe just at dusk, when the sun is no longer above the horizon but the sky is still lit up. You need a meter to be accurate though.