ND, Graduated ND, Etc.

[IainUK]

Hello - so I've decided that I want to start taking some longer exposures during the day and most of all I want to do something about the abysmal grey sky that seems to dominate our skies for 65% of the year. To do this I need to purchase some filters.

There seems to be two schools of thought. The screw on ones aren't great beacuse you can't slide the graduated filters up and down as the shot requires and the Cokin ones are OK but they affect the image quality in a negative way....

Can anyone give me advice on a good set that I should look at please? I will be using them with a 24-70L on a 5D MkI - thanks.....

[jrader]

The image quality is not affected significantly provided you get filters with a neutral color cast. I have a set of 4x6 inch GNDs and 4x4 inch NDs and they don't affect the quality at all. Also, they are very flexible in their usage versus a screw on filter.

I'm not sure what type of filter you are planning on getting to "fix" your skies though.

Best of luck.

John

[argyle]

...Can anyone give me advice on a good set that I should look at please? I will be using them with a 24-70L on a 5D MkI - thanks.....

For the best price-to-performance as far as graduated neutral density filters go, I'd recommend the Hitech filters...excellent filter, won't leave a color cast, and moderately priced. But they won't do much for gray skies, though. Whenever possible, at least in landscape shooting, when the sky doesn't add anything to the shot its best to leave it out of the image...a bad sky will do more to detract from the overall image than help it.

[IainUK]

Thanks guys - I guess it is more that although the skies are grey they can be a "bright" grey that causes over exposures.

[HYBEagle]

Just out of curiousity, is Hitech an American company ?

[Lesmac]

I'd go for a Lee Holder and and a 77mm wide angle adapter.

Filters, either Lee (very expensive) or Hitech.

I'd look at an 0.6 and 0.9 ND grad as starters.

[RyanTan]

For GNDs, you are right that a screw mount fixes the demarcation of the transition and makes composition pretty limited. Some makers such as Singh Ray provides slightly longer filters to give u abit more creativity in placement.

For NDs it probably does not make to much of a difference. I got a slim 77mm Vari-ND and u can use step down rings to cross adapt them, very color neutral, even when stacking with their GND filters.

No experience in other filters but I heard Lee is pretty good as well.

Ryan

[argyle]

I'd go for a Lee Holder and and a 77mm wide angle adapter.

Filters, either Lee (very expensive) or Hitech.

I'd look at an 0.6 and 0.9 ND grad as starters.

Ditto on that. Been using the Lee holder with Hitech filters for years without a hitch.

[n2_space]

Ditto on that. Been using the Lee holder with Hitech filters for years without a hitch.
I just grabbed that exact combo... and my GND's look great... however my 1/2 ND shows a red tinge to the photos... (I made a thread about it), I'm trying to figure out what the problem is :cry:

[Karl Johnston]

Hello - so I've decided that I want to start taking some longer exposures during the day and most of all I want to do something about the abysmal grey sky that seems to dominate our skies for 65% of the year. To do this I need to purchase some filters.

There seems to be two schools of thought. The screw on ones aren't great beacuse you can't slide the graduated filters up and down as the shot requires and the Cokin ones are OK but they affect the image quality in a negative way....

Can anyone give me advice on a good set that I should look at please? I will be using them with a 24-70L on a 5D MkI - thanks.....

It's all crazily confusing, aint it?

[Adphoto]

I just grabbed that exact combo... and my GND's look great... however my 1/2 ND shows a red tinge to the photos... (I made a thread about it), I'm trying to figure out what the problem is :cry:

There's a few of us that use Hitech filters for Large Format film work are noticing certain issues with their ND grads - we've got someone in the know who's supposed to be checking the colour response on a lab spectrometer as a few of us are seeing definite magenta casts in skies... :(

[n2_space]

There's a few of us that use Hitech filters for Large Format film work are noticing certain issues with their ND grads - we've got someone in the know who's supposed to be checking the colour response on a lab spectrometer as a few of us are seeing definite magenta casts in skies... :(
I haven't seen it in my GND's so far, just my ND :cry:

[Adphoto]

I guess it's just a case of how deep they go when they dip the filter or how long they leave it submerged in the tank...

[chauncey]

Someone tell me why use a filter when you have LR and PS.

[WillOPhotos]

^ If your shooting an Ocean shot with moving waves and cant get everything within one exposure?

[argyle]

Someone tell me why use a filter when you have LR and PS.

Because the computer/software can't do everything... ;)

[Adphoto]

Because the computer/software can't do everything... ;)

+1

...and those of us still using film for some pictures have the old-fashioned idea that's it's nice to get something right in the camera rather rely on the new-fangled rescue package of a computer! ;)

Try doing polarisation in a computer without a lot of work I'd guess...

Andrew