Heart of Gold by EliaLocardi

While I was in Italy working with the Fstoppers team a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of putting my new Formatt-Hitech Firecrest ND filters to good use in Cinque Terre! I have to say that it’s incredible what kinds of in-camera effects can be achieved when you leave the shutter open for a few minutes at a time. This image was captured using a Firecrest 10 stop filter with a long shutter speed of 181 seconds. As you can see, the exposure was long enough to create a really beautiful soft water effect as well as long streaky clouds. Since the sun was just about to touch the horizon at sunset, there was still plenty of soft golden light accumulating on the rocks and the surfaces of the old Italian buildings. It’s a time of day photographers like to call "golden hour" and in my opinion, it can be one of the best moments for long exposure photography. During the golden hour, the light is soft enough to not cause harsh shadows but still strong enough to create even and natural illumination. Of course the golden light also does wonders to the color palette, which is a big plus. :) More information about long exposure photography and the new Firecrest filters: http://bit.ly/travel-filter-kit --- If you're interested in my work, feel free to drop me a line on Instagram or my website EliaLocardi.com. via 500px http://500px.com/photo/93752863