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GerryD

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Gerald Davies
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I am currently learning photography :clap: and I am interested to know what filters landscape and wildlife photographers use?

I'm am also looking to purchase some filters. What would the best to buy for these disciplines? Reading the mags, it appears that I should be looking to purchase a UV, polarizer and some ND filters, including grad. Does this make sense? Any comments or are there other filers I should be looking to purchase?
 
Those sound good to me. Maybe warm up and cool down filters too, although not to essential with digital photography. My humble advise would be to learn how to take the picture with filters, rather than add them post capture in photoshop. Its the difference between being a photographer and a designer.
Good luck. Dean:)
 
Polarizers and ND filters (mainly the graduated one, IE Grads) are the most popular. I use ND grads a lot and really love the effect they bring to a photo. But I am no decent landscape or wildlife photographer :p

I would recommend the Cokin system if you want to start playing around with filters. You purchase rings which screw into the front of your lens, which a holder (a bit of plastic with slots in) clips onto this and then the filters (which a thin pieces of plastic) slots into the holder. They are fairly cheap £6 ish for the rings, £8 for the holders and about £10-£15 for the filters :)

Hope that helps.
 
Hello
The most important set of filters you can have for landscapes is a grey grad set. If you can afford it go for the Lee filter set, but if not get the Cokin P series. Here are a few shots with grads, that just would not be possible without them.

Mam_Tor_Peak_District.jpg


Mam_Tor_sunrise.jpg
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
They are fairly cheap £6 ish for the rings, £8 for the holders and about £10-£15 for the filters :)
Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Jimmy_Lemon, where are you getting the filters from?

Thanks for the comments Dino F

Would it be better to get a ND8 filter over and ND4? If I went for the ND8 filter and wanted to lighten a little, would increasing the exposure value compensate for this?

PapaLazarou, thanks for the comments.

Whats is the difference in the effect of a blue grad set to a gray grad set?
 
PS PapaLazarou, love the photos
 
Cheers Jimmy Lemon, but what are the advantages of having the cokin system over screw in filters for the front of the lens?
 
Cokin is more adaptable, especially for the grads as you can choose how much of the shot you want to cover with the ND part and also what angle you want it at :)

oh and you can keep the holder attached for general use and just slot a filter in if you need one, not keep screwing and unsrewing - saves the chances of cross threading a bit :)
 
Agree entirely with Jimmy Lemon, go for the cokin set, (P series), and the set of grey ND grads.
 
Blue grad filters will enhance the blueness of a sky, neut dens will only hold the lightness back to make it equal to the exposure of the forground. A word of caution though, the blue grad will also turn whit clouds blue.
Slot in filters are defo the most versatile.
Dean:)
 
thanks for the advice, I think the pattern emerging is that the cokin system is much better than the screw in system, and I'm beginning the think along the lines of getting a cokin system.

One thing does puzzle me. How are the filters held in place? I have heard a few people state that you can change the level of the filter in the holder. Also you can rotate the filters. How is this achieved ? (ok maybe I meant 2 things)
 
The filter holder is held on the lens by a screw in ring, The filters then slot into the grooves on the holder. Because the filters are only held on each side they can be slid up or down allowing the gradient blend to be positioned anywhere. The holder also freely rotates on the adapter ring. Go for the P series ones. P meaning proffesional, as opposed to the A (amateur) version.
The only difference being the size, the p series are larger.
Dean:)
 
Yup, what Dino said

digi1.jpg


Thats the adapter ring nearest the lens, you get them in all sizes to match the thread size of the front of your lens. The plastic holder then slots onto that (but has a little tab at the top, so it is help on snuggly) The holder isnt so tight that it is fixed in place, you can twist it to angle the filter (but it is fairly snug so that it doesnt just spin by itself). The filter at the front in that picture slots into the grooves at either side of the holder, which hold it tight but again not so tight that it cant be pushed and pulled up and down :)
 
Stay away from stupid grad sets like blue, pink and all the other crap they sell. All you need are - 1 grey grad set - 2 ND filter - 3 circular polarizer and maybe a sunset filter but that would be last on my list after i had nothing else to spend money on.
 
cheers for your help all, :thumbs: :thumbs: :thumbs: just one more question

whats the difference between soft, full, medium and light filters?:shrug:
 
I dont know what you mean, do you mean the graduation of the filter between soft too hard.
 
I think:

Soft is when the blend between the clear glass/plastic is a soft gradient IE and "ND Grad"

Full is when the whole filter is coated/colours IE it is an ND not a "ND Grad"

Medium and light refer to the strength. IE how much light it let through the ND part of the filter. These medium and light as sometime related to how many stops it takes off the exposure. (But I don't fully understand this part)

Hopefully someone can confirm the above :)
 
I know what you mean now, i just use the soft grad ones. Dont know how they compare, but the soft edge ones have been fine with me.
 
Forgive me if I seem like im hijacking the thread, but since were talking filters, I have a few questions;

Come payday im probably going to get a square filter system. The two systems im undecided between are the Cokin Z-Pro and the Lee foundation kit. Anyone used both or either of these? Any comments regarding either? The filters im after would be a Soft ND grad (0.6 a could place to start?) a Red filter for B&W work do really darken skies (I know it can be done in photoshop, but I find it doesn't do good things to noise levels) and a ND filter.

Looking at the Lee range, they do a range of Polyester filters for a fair bit cheaper than the Resin and glass ones. Anyone used these? Im tempted to get the red one in polyester to save some pennies.

My final question is; what is the most dense 100mm ND filter out there? At the moment I use a 10 stop B&W screw in filter, but even thats not quite dense enough for my liking. Do ND filters like this exist in 100mm format, or would I have to get them custom dipped by Lee? And on that note, has anyone got anything custom made by Lee?
 
Messiah Khan said:
Forgive me if I seem like im hijacking the thread, but since were talking filters, I have a few questions;

Come payday im probably going to get a square filter system. The two systems im undecided between are the Cokin Z-Pro and the Lee foundation kit. Anyone used both or either of these? Any comments regarding either? The filters im after would be a Soft ND grad (0.6 a could place to start?) a Red filter for B&W work do really darken skies (I know it can be done in photoshop, but I find it doesn't do good things to noise levels) and a ND filter.

Looking at the Lee range, they do a range of Polyester filters for a fair bit cheaper than the Resin and glass ones. Anyone used these? Im tempted to get the red one in polyester to save some pennies.

My final question is; what is the most dense 100mm ND filter out there? At the moment I use a 10 stop B&W screw in filter, but even thats not quite dense enough for my liking. Do ND filters like this exist in 100mm format, or would I have to get them custom dipped by Lee? And on that note, has anyone got anything custom made by Lee?
Click to expand...

I use the cokin Z grads (after I lost my Lee filters somewhere in the Dales)

I honestly can't see any difference in output between the two, except the cokins are thinner and scratch a lot more easier.
 
Also, for anyone considering whether to go with a filter holder kit like Lee or Cokin or the screw on type, you cant get screw on grads. For fairly obvious reasons. :D
 
And B+W do them, example here:-

http://www.cameraworld.co.uk/ViewPr...ated+Filter+77mm+&CAT_CODE=26&SUBCAT_CODE=237

In response to Messiah Khan, I went with the Lee system, a recent purchase. Initially I bought the Starter Kit and have followed that recently with a set of soft ND grads. I know they are more expensive than the Cokin Z-Pro ones, but they have a very high resale value, so my reasoning was that if I didn't get on with them, I could sell them on easily and get most of my money back!

All purchased through Robert White who are incredibly helpful and provide a great service.

So far though, there is no chance of them going back!

Mr Perceptive
 
I'm getting nikkor 12-24mm soon but heard from a friend even with cokin P wide angle holder, there will be vignett at 12mm. Can anyone confirm this?
 
you'll probably need the z-pro for a lens that wide. I get vignetting with the lee system on the sigma 10-20mm if I use all 3 filter slots on the front.

I got the lee system as I'd heard bad things about the cokin grads not being neutral in colour at all. Some of the shot's I've seen seem to back this up with slightly brown coloured skies (can't find any examples right now)


I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the hitech filters yet.....

They seem to be a good price and allegedly made in to the same standards as the lee ones. I need a set of hard grads so I'm going to be trying them next pay-day!
 
engowen said:
I'm getting nikkor 12-24mm soon but heard from a friend even with cokin P wide angle holder, there will be vignett at 12mm. Can anyone confirm this?
Click to expand...

I use the Cokin Wide Angle holder on my Sigma 10-20 and dont get any vignetting.
 
Gandhi said:
you'll probably need the z-pro for a lens that wide. I get vignetting with the lee system on the sigma 10-20mm if I use all 3 filter slots on the front.

I got the lee system as I'd heard bad things about the cokin grads not being neutral in colour at all. Some of the shot's I've seen seem to back this up with slightly brown coloured skies (can't find any examples right now)


I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the hitech filters yet.....

They seem to be a good price and allegedly made in to the same standards as the lee ones. I need a set of hard grads so I'm going to be trying them next pay-day!
Click to expand...


Any chance of a shot from the 10-20mm (This on a 1.6x crop body?) with the 3 holders to see how bad it is? I can't see me needing to use 3 filters at the same time on the 10-20mm, but you never know, and im on a 1.5x crop dody which won't help.
 
Took this for you on my 350D with Sigma 10-20 at 10mm with the Cokin P Wide Angle Holder :)
cokinpwa10ke6.jpg


No vignetting, no matter what I did :)
 
Just taken this @ 12mm with the normal Cokin P holder (again on the 350D)
cokinp12ak9.jpg


As you can see there is a bit of vignetting (top left and bottom right), this is the max I could get, by putting the holder at about 45 degrees.
 
don't feel like reinvesting into a different set of filter for cokin Z-Pro holder since i already have P holder with a CPL for my nikkor 17-55mm. I'm quite surprised by Jimmy's 2nd photo, as I'm getting vignett at 17mm using a normal cokin P holder.
 
:thumbs: enjoying reading this thread........ stuff I've meant to ask for a while :thinking: carry on guys
 
Thanks to PapaLazarou and Jimmy_Lemon for answering my question.

Messiah Khan, thanks to adding to the thread as you've given me something else to think about.

Jimmy_Lemon, was it a 100mm filter kit that you used to take the photo's in this thread?

I am making the assumption that all P series cokin filter are the same dimentions, regardless of lens diameter (in my case 58mm). Am I correct?

Assuming the above assumption is correct, is a I have a smaller diameter lens than the one Jimmy Lemon has does this mean that I could to a wider lens before I had any vignetting?

Out of curiosity and on a slightly different note what are the benefits of say a 82mm lens over a 52mm?

Again sry about the newbie question?
 
Yes, all Cokin P filters are the same size(well some are square, and some are rectangles, but for the sake of the argument, yes they are the same size). You have to buy Adapter Rings to make them fit the different thread widths. You seem to be getting a little confused betwen the focal length of the lens (Which Jimmy is talking about) and the filter diameter. The focal length dentermines how wide angle, or how telephoto the lens is. (Which is why the 10-20mm is an issue as its very wide angle) Whereas the filter thread diameter simply determines who big the front of the lens is, and thusly what filters you need (or Adapter Rings if you use a Cokin/Lee system) Theres no benefit from having a larger filter thread size, its simply how the lens manufacturers make them.(infact its probably a benefit having them smaller as it works out cheaper.) :)
 
Remember, on a really wide lens the filter can be held on to the lens hood using 2 small blobs of blu-tac. This eliminates vignetting as the filter is closer to the front element, as opposed to it being 5-10mm away in a holder. I have recently engineered a filter holder to hold 250mm Filters that i also manufactured for someone using a 6mm lens.
Dean:)
 
Did you actually make the filters for that 250mm setup Dino f? Idf so what sort of filters did you make, and how did you go about making them?
 
Yes MK, i work for a company that manufactures optical display filters, The ones i make are cast resin type similar to Cokin, i make loads of different colours also diffused (soft focus) ones. The ones i make have the colour impregnated inside them, so the colour cannot be scratched off. I cant make grads but mostly make ND or coloured ones. Also at the moment i am having a bit of success i making Toned Polarisers, ie, a circular polariser with a warm up or cool down filter laminated to them in square format (A, P, Z size), but i have to run some tests on these. The proccess is a very technical one so making them at home is a no no.
Dean:)
 
Ah, ok. Thought it was a bit of a tricky thing to do at home.:lol: For a very brief time I worked for Schott Glass, who make also make filters (amongst many otehr things) Absolutely hated the job though. Im very seriously considering getting a cutom filter made by Lee when I get my kit next month. Im thinking of getting something like a soft 12stop-14stop ND grad.:D
 
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