Filters

[Ari]

Chaps, talk to me about filters.

What have you got? When do you use them? What's the results? That kind of thing.

Interested to know how and what gets used.

[RobDickinson]

Got - 85mm hitechs & cokin CPL, with cokin 3 filter holder and adaptor rings. Had a Wide angle holder and reverse grad until the other weekend when it fell off into the sea and wasnt seen again.

Will be getting Lee 100mm filter setup damned soon. Hitech filters on their own are OK, the 85mm size , if your serious, is too small.

[dibbly dobbler]

Cokin CPL
Lee .6 grad
Lee .9 grad
Lee Big Stopper

Use the CPL and the grads a lot - rarely use the BS. The Lee stuff is stupidly expensive but good

[...Mole...]

I use Hi-Tech 100mm ones which seem to be quite good for the price.
However they do have a colour cast when stacked and they scratch very easily!

[dxbtiger]

dibbly dobbler said:

Cokin CPL
Lee .6 grad
Lee .9 grad
Lee Big Stopper

Use the CPL and the grads a lot - rarely use the BS. The Lee stuff is stupidly expensive but good

Fancy doing me mates rates for the BS?

@OP

CPL for the 24-70 and a big hunk of welding glass are my only one so far.

Really want a BS and maybe some grads.

It seems very easy to spend a lot of cash on them though!

[markmullen]

Lee hard edged grads in 1,2,3 stops
Lee soft edged grads in 1,2,3 stops
Lee Big Stopper
Lee 105mm CPL
Hitech reverse grad 3 stop
Cokin 100mm 3 stop ND
Lee sky blue grad

99% of my shots use filters, often in combinations; this one for example was a CPL (to cut through reflections to make a foreground interest of the submerged rocks), 2 stop soft edged grad (to balance the bright clouds) and Big Stopper (to slow the whole thing down and smooth out the water on the loch).


Loch Lubnaig Long Exposure by mark_mullen, on Flickr

[Ari]

Thanks Mark, that's very interesting.

I think filters is going to be the next "black art" to get my head around, hence the question.

[markmullen]

I don't know what body you're using but liveview if you have it makes using filters a doddle, you can see what you're getting, where transitions lie, how much polarisation you're getting, even how long to give a Big Stopper (in daylight, it'll only let you set up to 30 seconds).

[Ari]

D7000 so it does have liveview. That's a good tip, thanks.

[markmullen]

Ari said:

D7000 so it does have liveview. That's a good tip, thanks.

In that case a tripod and liveview and just experiment, keep an on screen histogram and you can check you're not blocking your shadows or clipping your highlights.

[...Mole...]

I dont think i could live without live view now.
Geared tripod head and Live view makes composing photo's a lot smoother for me.
Also great for focussing, dont think I've used the AF on my 5d mk2 once. Whereas
i did quite a bit on my D200 because Manual Focus wth a wide angle lens and the size
of the viewfinder was a pain.

[markmullen]

...Mole... said:

Geared tripod head and Live view makes composing photo's a lot smoother for me.

Perfect combo for landscapes.

[GetCarter]

I also use various Lee grads (to keep highlights in the sky from blowing)... and a CPL.... good example of what that'll do here:

[Ari]

GetCarter said:

I also use various Lee grads (to keep highlights in the sky from blowing)... and a CPL.... good example of what that'll do here:

That's excellent!

[dibbly dobbler]

dxbtiger said:

Fancy doing me mates rates for the BS?

Stop by next time you're in Edinburgh and you can have a shot

[Craikeybaby]

I also use Lee filters, I have a 3 stop hard grad, a 2 stop ND and a Heliopan 105mm CPL to use with them.

[Gad-Westy]

I'm also on Lee's

105mm CPL
2.5 (0.75) stop hard ND grad
2.5 (0.75) stop soft ND grad
Big stopper

Fancy a reverse grad as well but that'll have to wait for now.

I started on hitech kit which worked very well until they were stacked at which point I'd often get a colour cast so I gradually switched over to Lee.

[binliner]

I use filters a lot...

Lee hard ND grads 0.3, 0.6, 0.9
Lee pro ND 0.9 (combines well with the big stopper to give even longer daytime exposures!)
Lee big stopper

they seem to cover most situations, only things on my wish list are 105mm Lee CPL and a 3 stop reverse ND grad... oh and maybe a 2 stop soft ND grad

Mark do you get any vignetting with the 105mm CPL?

[markmullen]

I've got my 105mm CPL on a one slot foundation kit, with that I can get down to about 19mm on FF without vignetting. I've also got the tandem ring in case I want to add it to my usual 2 slot foundation kit, with that (so 2 slots free and the CPL) I can get to about 24/25mm without vignetting.

If for any reason I want to use the CPL at 17mm I've got a 77mm-105mm stepping ring but that of course means no slots for filters.

[dxbtiger]

dibbly dobbler said:

dxbtiger said:

Fancy doing me mates rates for the BS?

Stop by next time you're in Edinburgh and you can have a shot

Cheers...

'Approximate distance as the crow flies in miles from Edinburgh Great Britain (UK) to Dubai United Arab Emirates is 3585 miles or 5768.27 Kilometers;

It could be a while!