ND Filters

martinturner

martinturner

martinturner

Associate
Joined
27 Jun 2007
Posts
1,777
I am looking to branch out further in a bid to get more out of camera and apply less processing, so am interested in some ND grads. I mainly shoot landscapes, so the grads would be used to tone down over exposed skies whilst maintaining foreground elements. I have had an instance where due to being high up and sun placement needed to darken up the left or the right of the shot. My workaround has always been to take a couple of shots and stack them (blending layers in PS).

I am quite interested to find out who owns some grad ND's. Do you find them useful and most importantly, point my in the right direction with regards to what to buy. I do not want full shot coverage, as I already own some NDs and additionally a 10 stop ND for long exposures for smooth water etc. My purpose from these is to dampen bright skies enough for camera to balance tonal range througout. Additionally, I would like to shoot some sunsets, but often struggle with them as too much light is getting in the camera and its tough to find a balance without darkening everything. I am presuming they would be useful in this instance?

Oh, I have a D40, although am guessing I am going to need something Cokin/Lee? I am confused by all the letters etc, so some help would be appreciated. Or can you get ND grad filters that are round and screw thread?

Thank you :)
 
If you screwed them in, you couldn't change the height of the gradient, which is pretty darn useful.

I use cokin P series and find it excellent. Some people prefer the Lee system. I dont think either can really be better at being a slightly darkened piece of plastic :p

Get what suits your budget. And yes, a ND grad is exactly what you want :)
 
you can get screw in grads but you are servery limited not being able to adjust its position.

While cokin are probably the cheapest, they are know for their colour cast which can be annoying and ranges from weak to fairly strong depending on what you get.
Lee are very good, but expensive. Personally I would have a look at Hitech. Ill try to find the site i was going to buy my own from. a set of 3 for a good price. You can also use them with the cheaper Cokin filter holders.

The one thing your going to have to decide, is whether you will want hard or soft edges. ie http://my-photo-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/filters.jpg hard on left, soft on right. If you do a lot of seascapes a hard edge or two is very useful. but if your horizons tend not to be dead straight then some soft ones will give a more natural effect.

Ill go and see if i can find that site now. ;)
Someone else should be able to give you a better description of the strengths than i can off the top of my head.
 
Last edited:
I have Cokin filters and from day 1 disliked the colour cast. Now if the shot is impossible without the filter I will use it but I try to avoid them.

Lee filters are better. But best is some ND filters (and UV and polarisers) from B+W or Heliopan. For ND-Grads look at Sinhg-Ray.
 
martinturner said:
I am looking to branch out further in a bid to get more out of camera and apply less processing, so am interested in some ND grads. I mainly shoot landscapes, so the grads would be used to tone down over exposed skies whilst maintaining foreground elements. I have had an instance where due to being high up and sun placement needed to darken up the left or the right of the shot. My workaround has always been to take a couple of shots and stack them (blending layers in PS).

I am quite interested to find out who owns some grad ND's. Do you find them useful and most importantly, point my in the right direction with regards to what to buy. I do not want full shot coverage, as I already own some NDs and additionally a 10 stop ND for long exposures for smooth water etc. My purpose from these is to dampen bright skies enough for camera to balance tonal range througout. Additionally, I would like to shoot some sunsets, but often struggle with them as too much light is getting in the camera and its tough to find a balance without darkening everything. I am presuming they would be useful in this instance?

Oh, I have a D40, although am guessing I am going to need something Cokin/Lee? I am confused by all the letters etc, so some help would be appreciated. Or can you get ND grad filters that are round and screw thread?

Thank you :)
Click to expand...

If the issue you're trying to address is excess contrast on your photos resulting in highlights being "blown out", then to my knowledge ND filters won't help. The ND I have is consistently the same in applying darkness across the whole of the image. I believe that you can get graduated filters, but that's a different matter.
Another alternative is to use a tripod and take bracketed multiple shots of say a landscape at different exposures, then blend them in together.
 
Thanks for all your replies.

I have had a quick look and if I want Cokin P, I am looking at
£15 for the filter holder, £15 for lens adapter and then ~£20 for each grad ND. Which collectively is not too bad a price. Also what are the different letter representive of A P Z etc? I am guessing different ranges?

Is the colour cast that bad on the Cokins? I hear lots and lots of people using them?

As for Lee, perhaps I was reading it wrong, but the filter holder seems to come as part of a kit which costs £100. You then have to buy the filter adapter and then the filter (similar to the Cokins) I could not see why the price is so steep for what it is? Can you not but the filter holder not as part of a kit? Are there different ranges like the Cokin A P Z's etc?

I think I know what the colour cast is; occassionally I get this on my B+W110. It usually occurs on a really sunny day where my environment is very saturated and I choose a longish exposure time. I normally have to stop down or shorten the exposure time to stop it. Its a sickly orangy tone.

Hitech (don't they make crap trainers, lol!). I could not find anywhere which sells them? Are they not as popular? I don't want to invest in something which actually is a dying breed 'so to speak'? Or am I just looking in the wrong places?

I also had a look at the B&W circular threaded ND grads. They do a hard and a soft which are about £50 each (for my 67mm). Quite expensive, although restrictive in terms of moving horizon line. I really trust B&W as I have some other filters by them, although the price/effectiveness/restrictions are a concern?

More advice needed please. I am usually independent and would happily go with what suits 'me', but on this I am happy to go with the general consensus.

:)
 
Helium_Junkie said:
I've heard it before, but I still have never noticed it with my filters!
Perhaps you were a victim of a bad batch?
Click to expand...

No, they cast a brown colour over everthing whihc is hard to remove and not pleasant. An orange warm tone I could cope with but this is a dirty grey-brown. On a graduated filter its a pain to try to correct.

If you are just trying to darken white clouds or darken a bluish hazey sky, then the correction is possible with care but its not a 10s Lightroom trick.

They also noticibly reduce sharpness, but then what do expect from a cheap bit of plastic in front of precision glass.
 
martinturner said:
Thanks for all your replies.

I have had a quick look and if I want Cokin P, I am looking at
£15 for the filter holder, £15 for lens adapter and then ~£20 for each grad ND. Which collectively is not too bad a price. Also what are the different letter representive of A P Z etc? I am guessing different ranges?

Is the colour cast that bad on the Cokins? I hear lots and lots of people using them?

As for Lee, perhaps I was reading it wrong, but the filter holder seems to come as part of a kit which costs £100. You then have to buy the filter adapter and then the filter (similar to the Cokins) I could not see why the price is so steep for what it is? Can you not but the filter holder not as part of a kit? Are there different ranges like the Cokin A P Z's etc?

I think I know what the colour cast is; occassionally I get this on my B+W110. It usually occurs on a really sunny day where my environment is very saturated and I choose a longish exposure time. I normally have to stop down or shorten the exposure time to stop it. Its a sickly orangy tone.

Hitech (don't they make crap trainers, lol!). I could not find anywhere which sells them? Are they not as popular? I don't want to invest in something which actually is a dying breed 'so to speak'? Or am I just looking in the wrong places?

I also had a look at the B&W circular threaded ND grads. They do a hard and a soft which are about £50 each (for my 67mm). Quite expensive, although restrictive in terms of moving horizon line. I really trust B&W as I have some other filters by them, although the price/effectiveness/restrictions are a concern?

More advice needed please. I am usually independent and would happily go with what suits 'me', but on this I am happy to go with the general consensus.

:)
Click to expand...

B+W is top, but a circular threaded ND-grad filter is about as useful as a chocolate kettle.
 
martinturner said:
That still leaves me in a dillema. I need grads. And B+W don't seem to do a square series? So I am looking at one of the alternatives.
Click to expand...

Your options for square/rectangular filters are Cokin, Hitech, Kood and Lee (there may be other less know about brands as well). If you are after the best quality, then get Lee. But expect to pay for the quality.

Just out of interest, why do you "need grads"? Im a big advocate of exposure blending in post production. Fair enough, some people prefer doing it in camera, and some situations would be hard to do in pp. But on the flipside, using exposure blending you can get a much more accurate shape. For example ND grads don't come in valley shapes, or hill shapes. Each to their own, but im planning on selling my Lee kit eventually as i just don't use it.
 
Depending on how wide angle the lens you want to put the filters on you might want to go for the Z-Pro size cokin, they use 100mm wide glass so have less chance of vignetting on wider angles. There's also 3 filter holder parts, you can remove the front one for really wide angles, they are held on by screws.

http://www.cokin.co.uk/pages/cokinZ.htm

I think I read that they also use higher grade glass and have less chance of having a strong colour cast. I went for a 77mm adapter and then a 67-77mm step up ring and another 52mm-67mm step up ring, then you can use the filters on most of Nikons newer lenses, nifty fifty, consumer zooms and wider angles like the tokina 11-16mm.
 
Messiah Khan said:
Im a big advocate of exposure blending in post production.
Click to expand...

Do you mean using bracketing type methods? That normally means a tripod, or hoping some clever alignment software such as PS3 will make the pictures line up right - which it won't do if there is any wind moving the clouds/trees.

Sometimes it's just not possible to blend multiple shots like that.

Or have I misunderstood?
 
Helium_Junkie said:
Do you mean using bracketing type methods? That normally means a tripod, or hoping some clever alignment software such as PS3 will make the pictures line up right - which it won't do if there is any wind moving the clouds/trees.

Sometimes it's just not possible to blend multiple shots like that.

Or have I misunderstood?
Click to expand...

He means how I currently do this already. Thereby taking multiple exposure shots using a tripod. Then masking/blending the shots in CS3. The benefit with doing it in post, is that you don't apply the grad in a straight line, you can apply it exactly to your chosen mask. For example, if you have a big tree in your shot, you would blend both shots and mask the tree so it does not get darkened (there are other steps involved to blend the tree, but I am explaining in a dirty manner). If I was using grad NDs I would be forced to darken the tree. I guess the benefit is for the majority of times, they are useful and saves having to take multiple shots. They also allow for handheld shooting.
 
^ found the sites. Googling; Hitech filters uk seemed to work ;)
http://www.formatt.co.uk/stills-filters/filters/graduated-n-d/stills-filters.aspx
http://www.teamworkphoto.com/index....s_id=7&zenid=986c0be7ef153b59d1d44729fc4a29ad
The best deal are the 3 hitechs in the bundle. Though you have to get them all as either hard or soft edged. Obviously the smaller 85mm size is smaller and a good bit cheaper.

My friend has these on a Cokin filter holder, so im just waiting for him to get back to me on which one it is, and if he gets vignetting on this 10-20mm lens. Do you think you ll be getting an ultra wide lens like this anytime soon?
 
The regular P series will vignette on the 10-20mm

http://www.ephotozine.com/topic/t-72072
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1030&message=25863904&changemode=1

I use Cokin Z pro filters with my Sigma 10-20mm. You need a filter holder, a 77mm adapter ring and then whatever filters you want.

The Z pro's are more expensive than the P series, but they wont cause any vignetting and don't have the colour cast some people say you get with the P series.

If you can afford it then Lee filters could be a wise investment.
Click to expand...

The Cokin Wide angle slimline P series holder still produces vignetting with a Sigma 10-20 buy the Z
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom