oops, got a ND4 instead of a graduated one

[toddb]

Not sure what happened....I guess I didn't research this enough before I went into the camera store and did an impulse buy. I got this Hoya ND4 filter for my 17-40 thinking it was the type that was half clear and half 2 stop darker grey. But it's all grey. I guess I can use it to so I can get larger apertures in daylight or for getting slower shutter speeds, but what I really wanted was to the graduated 2 stop difference HD filter.

Any suggestions before I had back to the camera store to exchange? Has anyone really used just a plain ND filter that wasn't graduated?

[thomasrhee]

ND4 is equivalent to 13 stops. I'm not sure how often you're going to have a need for that. I use a ND 0.6 and ND 0.9 and find them useful.

[felix21685]

ok so for newbies like me..this is a filter that darkens things

so you can have a slower shutter speed? so to blur better in mid day ?
sorry for the newbness

[MarkH]

ok so for newbies like me..this is a filter that darkens things

so you can have a slower shutter speed? so to blur better in mid day ?
sorry for the newbness

Yep, that's the gist of it.

Ever seen photos of waterfalls where the water looks silky? In full daylight you would need to lose several stops of light to get the shutter speed slow enough, that's where you need a ND filter.

ND = Neutral Density = Neutral grey, doesn't change the colour, just reduces light.

Split ND filter (what Todd thought he was getting) is usually used to darken the sky for those shots where the sky is too bright and the landscape isn't.

[toddb]

Ya, and you can get wider apertures. But really, I haven't needed a 2 stop reduction overall, I wanted one that brought the sky down a couple stops so I didn't have to keep trying to bracket so much and merge images together. Sometimes I don't have my tripod with me all the time. That was the real reason for wanting the "graduated" ND filter. I just messed up and got the solid grey one which bring everything down 2 stops.

[weemannie]

Ya, and you can get wider apertures. But really, I haven't needed a 2 stop reduction overall, I wanted one that brought the sky down a couple stops so I didn't have to keep trying to bracket so much and merge images together. Sometimes I don't have my tripod with me all the time. That was the real reason for wanting the "graduated" ND filter. I just messed up and got the solid grey one which bring everything down 2 stops.

If you shoot RAW you can merge with just 1 image. Convert the RAW image twice, once for highlights and again for shadows.

I've got a 3 stop ND and use it a lot for waterfalls etc. to blur movement. Since I prefer to get a greater Depth of Field I like the extra flexibility this filter gives me.

[felix21685]

how much are these nd filters?

[toddb]

The one I got wasn't too bad, $46 at the camera store for a 77mm. It's a Hoya ND4 (mf#: 006752).

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=23340&is=REG

I've been able to bracket shots and merge, it's just that sometimes I don't have my tripod but I'd still like to try and get a landscape shot. It's just a little tougher merging images when the content isn't exactly the same (from camera being handheld). Most of the landscape shots I've done this to I was unable to recover any sky detail, just to far blown, but that is a good idea to look for that in my RAW images. It's pretty amazing how much you can adjust the exposure in just the raw conversion (that is as long as it's not completely blown).