UKC

Hello All,

I am interested in purchasing a neutral density filter, of the graduated type.

I was just wondering what people use, circular or rectangle ones. What strengths and if it has a hard or soft gradient.

Also where you got them from, they all seem to be very expensive

In reply to pffft:

HiTech filters are good and cheaper than Lee etc.

Would star with 0.6 hard, 0.6 soft and 0.9 hard

Simon

In reply to pffft: Definitely go for the square ones over the screw in circular ones, they are much easier to adjust and angle correctly and its easy to layer multiple grad filters. They are expensive, but its worth it. The Lee ones are amazing

In reply to jockster: 1+ I have used HiTech for about 3 years, very good quality, no colour cast and the new ones are now the same size as the Lee filters, 100mm x 150mm I think.

That said, I still bought the lee filter with wide angle lens adapter as it is by far the best filter holder.

In reply to Duncan_Andison: That was meant to be, still bought the lee filter holder.

In reply to pffft: If you're just buying one, I would go for a 0.6 hard grad, rectangular

In reply to pffft:

Post-process. I use Adobe Lightroom 3. Once I get to a decent internet connection, might try 4.0

In reply to pffft: Cokin P set, square as you can fit others or multiples in the same holder, some deals to be had if you look around.

In reply to pffft:

I've just purchased a set of Kood ND grad filters (square type) you can use cokin ones with them as well, they're even on offer now at £44 including screw in adapter from premier ink and photographic. Pretty happy with them.

http://www.premier-ink.co.uk/photographic/square-filters/p-type/kood-ptype-...

In reply to pffft: I've got Cokin too - take some practise but make a big difference once you get the hang of them. Picked them up off Ebay for about £40 I think - 1,2 and 3 stops.

In reply to radson:

Surely that won't recover 'lost' info due to exposure differences between the darker and lighter areas? Or do you mean merge two separate files, getting the best exposure from both for the respective areas?

In reply to Fraser:

Yes, you are right but I am generally not too worried about losing detail in the sky, so I'd rather just drag down the grad filter option in lightroom than playing around with a grad filter in the 'field' . and yes as backup, I may do some bracketing and play around with the pics later.

Each to their own. Most of my pics are taken with gloves on, so I dont want to play too much with filters. i would rather just keep on my circ-polarizer.

In reply to pffft:

I see so many photos where the use of a graduated filter is so, so obvious - and so, so false. Personally I stick to ungraduated filters, but I'm using them to get a long shutter speed rather than deal with a wide dynamic range in an image.

The square ones have another advantage not listed so far - you can use them with lenses with different size filter threads by using different adapter rings, which are cheap.

In reply to pffft:

There's an interesting discussion on whether they're needed here: https://secure.flickr.com/groups/nikon_d90/discuss/72157615257427607/

In reply to pffft:
Soft grad 0.6 is all you need, and buy the screw in type, they are much easier to use, there is no light leak round the filter causing reflections like you can get with the square type.
Because its the soft grad type you don't need to be accurate where the grad line starts and don't need the ability to move the grad line up and down (the only real selling point of square filters) just make sure the angle of the line is correct by rotating the filter.
Tiffen filters tend to be nice and neutral.

Hope this helps

Dan