Grads - Which type do you use and why?

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Hi all,

I'm looking at buying a grad filter set as I know nothing about them but want to have balanced pictures with a decent dynamic range etc. but I've just been reading Ken Rockwell's article on grads where he says that he doesn't use square slot in types because by the time he's set them up the light has changed - which is exactly one of the concerns I have about using them - he says he uses the circular types - but I hear hardly anyone using or mentioning these so I was wondering which systems do you use and how do you get on with them... also if you could recommend any for someone totally new to them I'd be grateful!

Thanks.
 
square/rectangular ones enable you to adjust where the graduation falls. You don't particularly need a holder. You can just hold it in front of the lens. If you buy any make sure you get ones large enough to use on your biggest diameter lens. You will find that the hard-edges grads work best on sea scapes, the soft-edged on landscapes.
 
My first advice it to stop taking advice from Ken Rockwell! It takes 10 seconds to slot a square filter into a holder. If I'm shooting landscapes I leave the adaptor ring screwed on to my lens and often the filter holder too. There's really no effort/time involved in fitting the filters.

As above, round filters don't give you any flexibility for where you want the grad to be. Screw on NDs are ok because they effect the whole scene but I wouldn't recommend screw on grads.
 
It doesn't take long to setup, infact is easier then taking a circular filter out the box and screw it to your lens. When shooting landscape, you already know what lens you want to use, so I will put the adapter ring and possibly the holder before I even go out. When you arrive at your scene, simply setup your tripod and mount the camera for compose then slot the filters in .......
 
Did Mr Rockwell really say that, what a muppet :lol: As above square filters take 2 seconds to slot in. I'm not a fan of circular grads as you have no flexibility of positioning them.

There's numerous filter sets out there, but without knowing your budget it's difficult to recommend. I bought some relatively cheap ones as wasn't sure I was going to use them much, but I do and this Christmas Santa is bringing me a new filter set (Hitech) as my old ones have colour cast and the 85mm isn't wide enough for 18mm on Full Frame and causes vignetting. I'm hoping the 100mm set will eliminate this.
 
Or, save yourself some money and don't buy any :)

I shoot a LOT of Landscapes and never use them; if I shot seascapes all day long then I might buy some, but my subjects are generally pointy and the filters never fit around the pointy bits

If you've signed up to the monthly Adobe scheme for Lightroom & Photoshop then you really don't need them and a good set of filters could easily set you back 2-3 years worth of monthly subscription

If you're certain that your photography is suffering from a lack of them though, buy the best you can afford, and I agree with the others that circular ones are an especially daft idea

Dave
 
Tringa said:
Have a look at the filters, adaptors and holders on here - http://srb-photographic.co.uk/. - decent stuff that doesn't break the bank.

Dave
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The SRB own brand ones are the ones I'm replacing, the 2 stop and 3 stop have quite a lot of colour cast, especially considering how that they're not particularly strong.
 
DG Phototraining said:
Or, save yourself some money and don't buy any :)

I shoot a LOT of Landscapes and never use them; if I shot seascapes all day long then I might buy some, but my subjects are generally pointy and the filters never fit around the pointy bits

If you've signed up to the monthly Adobe scheme for Lightroom & Photoshop then you really don't need them and a good set of filters could easily set you back 2-3 years worth of monthly subscription

If you're certain that your photography is suffering from a lack of them though, buy the best you can afford, and I agree with the others that circular ones are an especially daft idea

Dave
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Do you bracket and merge in post then?
 
Photodiva said:
You can just hold it in front of the lens.
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Yes! it's not just me that does this!

Screw-in grads would be absolutely hopeless. Surely no-one surely uses them, do they? But I agree that a screw-in ND (big stopper type) is viable.

Another thing I keep banging on about is that you don't need to buy a set of filters. I use 1 stop and 2 stop hard grads and occasionally stack them, and I don't use a holder. The transition zone between light and dark in a hard grad is quite narrow and therefore abrupt; as Carol says it is more suitable for seascapes and landscapes where the horizon is fairly well defined. With a soft grad the transition is more gentle and I believe it requires a darker grad (ie 3 stop instead of a 2) to make it worth using.
 
snerkler said:
Do you bracket and merge in post then?
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Rarely, but if the range is pretty extreme then yes. It doesn't take any longer than fitting a filter holder & filter but its more controllable and doesn't affect areas where you don't want it to. Subtle use of HDR is still fine, but the new big thing is Exposure Blending


smr said:
If you have a particularly bright yet nice sunset prone to blowing out, and a dark foreground - are there times where bracketing and blending in PP wouldn't recover ? I mean if you don't get your bracketing right or so on?
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The sunset problem is having the Sun clearly visible in it and no filter is going to sort that one out, but merging a range of images would be a better solution than trying to place one filter

Personally, I try to avoid shooting sunsets/sunrises when the Sun is clearly visible. I much prefer it behind some clouds or just before/after its below the horizon or some other foreground obstruction like trees, buildings etc.

Dave
 
Unfortunately it seems that my Camera might not be quite up to bracketing/blending images etc.

Auto Bracketed Frames = 3
Max EV Step Increment = 2
Max EV range in AEB = 4

According to HDRsoft...

"Auto Exposure Bracketing is very useful for capturing high contrast scenes for HDR. However, AEB wasn't intended for HDR initially, but for ensuring that one of the shots taken is correctly exposed. This means that some camera models only offer a maximum of 1 EV spacing, or even less, in just three auto bracketed shots.


Unfortunately, three shots spaced by one EV are often not sufficient for capturing high contrast scenes."
 
I'm new to filters myself and just spent a bomb buying a set. To me the appeal was trying to get the dynamic range of a scene captured in one raw file, and combine with NDs for long exposures. I have a Sony A7 and tried the Sky HDR app that can combine 2 exposures into one raw to simulate a grad, though impressive and flexible as it is - you can alter the transition width, position in frame, and difference in exposure at will - I didn't feel it offered the best solution and still felt compelled to try out grads.

One thing I've become acutely aware of is the transition looks different on different lenses and focal lengths. For example a hard grad can become more like a soft, and on some lenses a soft doesn't seem to give a transition from the full stopping capability of the filter through to clear. I think I'll have to buy some very hard and medium grads.

For 1 stop you can probably just as easily underexpose 1 stop and lift the shadows with no adverse effects. Instead of a reverse grad I'd consider combining 2 grads as shown here: https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2010/12/ad-hoc-reverse-nd-grad-filters/

I went for 100mm filters using the Lee holder system as I use a full frame camera and plan to get an ultrawide zoom at some point, so don't want to buy twice.

smr said:
Unfortunately it seems that my Camera might not be quite up to bracketing/blending images etc.
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You don't need to use the bracketing feature. Put your camera in manual mode and your camera will either adjust exposure in half or third stops, there may be a setting in the menu to alter this. For one 2 clicks will change your exposure 1 stop, the other 3 clicks. Expose for the shadows and take a shot, then increase shutter speed take another etc, until you have a decent exposure for the highlights.

Interestingly my Minolta Dynax 9 35mm film camera can do 7 shots with up to 1 EV spacing.
 
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smr said:
Unfortunately it seems that my Camera might not be quite up to bracketing/blending images etc.

Auto Bracketed Frames = 3
Max EV Step Increment = 2
Max EV range in AEB = 4
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Thats actually 5 stops, you missed the base exposure.
If you really want to go mad, on a stationary subject, you can get a spread of 15 stops, by combining Exposure Compenstation along with Bracketing. Why anybody would want to go that far though is beyond me :)
A single shot with a 3 stop grad is usually more than enough, my 2 or 3 stop soft are my most used.
 
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an1uk said:
For 1 stop you can probably just as easily underexpose 1 stop and lift the shadows with no adverse effects. The only use I can think for a 1 stop grad is to simulate a reverse grad in combination with another grad as shown at: https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2010/12/ad-hoc-reverse-nd-grad-filters/
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I use a 1stop hard grad in combination with a polariser to get really lovely blue skies with white clouds. I find a 2 stop tends to dampen the blue down to a grey-blue. 1 stop is perfect, although there may be other ways of doing it.

an1uk said:
One thing I've become acutely aware of is the transition looks different on different lenses and focal lengths. For example a hard grad can become more like a soft, and on some lenses a soft doesn't seem to give a transition from the full stopping capability of the filter through to clear. I think I'll have to buy some very hard and medium grads.
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It's down to depth of field isn't it? A wide angle lens has a greater depth of field and will tend to show the transition more clearly. A long lens will tend to make it softer (I hope i got that right way round....:naughty:)
 
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jerry12953 said:
I use a 1stop hard grad in combination with a polariser to get really lovely blue skies with white clouds. I find a 2 stop tends to dampen the blue down to a grey-blue. 1 stop is perfect, although there may be other ways of doing it.
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Yes, much the same for me. The only other use I have found for a 1 stop, is to invert it so it's at the bottom of the frame to bring the centre of the image to greater prominence.
 
I use both hard and soft graduated filters by Lee Filters. I carry two different filter holders. The first has two slots and on the front is a 105mm ring to attach my Heliopan Polarizer. The other holder has three slots in case I come up against an extreme situation whereby I need to grads placed normally and one upside down.

There is the case for blending and it's probably more convenient to do so in a city rather than the landscape. It's an argument almost as bad as the Nikon vs. Canon one ;)

My Canon 6D has decent dynamic range and could nearly get away with no grads. However, I would prefer to get the exposure in one shot and not be faffing about blending.

In addition to stills I'm also doing time lapse footage. If you've ever done this on a regular basis and sell it then you'll time is of the essence. The time saved for me is massive.

Find a book called Capturing Colour by Phil Malpas. He gives the clearest example of how you correctly choose a grad. I know you can use Live View but I personally feel that it is better to fully understand how you meter.
 
smr said:
I'm seeing a lot of tutorials on exposure blending but I can't find a tutorial from the various first instance in camera at the time of composition and shooting.

For exposure blending I have to bracket my shots right ? How do you know whether to bracket 1 stop or 2 stops ?
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With my Canon I usually take 5 bracketed shots, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, stops. That said, I prefer just to use the 100x150 Lee grads, rather than mess around with exposure blending.
 
here's an exposure blend I did up in Scotland back in January.

My basic method here was, being lazy, to turn on Live View then:

1) Take a shot where the histogram is pushed to the right so the shadows are opened. Push it as far as you can without blowing the highlights too much

2) Then go back the other way and take a shot whereby you reel the highlights in and they aren't overexposed and the histogram is now not overexposing to the right but will probably show quite a lot of darks

loch-achtriochtan-in-glen-coe-scotland-picture-id604772609
 
I don't like HDR images at all, and I've already today seen a few tutorials on youtube of exposure blending where the author says they also don't like HDR images and how to do exposure blending instead - but most of them end up looking like HDR images in the end!

Stumbled across Jimmy McIntyre's videos and he seems to have nailed the exposure blending methods without that HDR look but it looks time consuming indeed, and I'd have to study a course in Adobe Photoshop on layering/masks etc. which I have no idea about. If I can just use filters in front of my lens I think I'd rather do this instead and save all that faffing about. I realise filters might be more expensive but there'd be a lot of time involved in exposure blending by the look of it and time = money!
 
smr said:
I'm seeing a lot of tutorials on exposure blending but I can't find a tutorial from the various first instance in camera at the time of composition and shooting.

For exposure blending I have to bracket my shots right ? How do you know whether to bracket 1 stop or 2 stops ?
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I've done an exposure blending tutorial on here and am happy to answer any questions on it.

With regards to the actual exposures you capture my advice is to learn about something called "exposing to the right" and understand that principle and the benefits of doing so. Don't listen to the normal advice of 2 under and 2 over the cameras metering!

Essentially you shoot to place the tones of the capture as far to the right hand side of the histogram as possible without clipping the highlights. Blown is blown and the detail has gone. Now a standard contrast scene exposed to the right without any white clipping will probably have a histogram that is not touching the left hand side either but a high contrast scene with the highlights held will have solid blacks.

Now, this is the simple way, set your bracketing order up to be -,0,+ and once you have established your exposed to the right exposure (crucially with no blown highlights in any colour channel) tell your camera to take 3 brackets 1 stop apart and adjust the manual exposure or compensation so that the first shot, the minus 1 stop, is your exposed to the right with no blown highlights shots. The next 2 are then additive exposures that lift the shadows for you. Check your histogram to make sure in the brightest one the dark tones are away from the left hand edge.

Experience will tell you how much extra exposure you need but remember memory is cheap so if in doubt shoot 5. But triple make sure the darkest one has no blown highlights. Obviously the highlights will be blown in the brighter exposures but you won't be using the highlights from those shots when you get home.

There are slightly more accurate ways using live histogram to meter the scene and work it out but really to begin with I would just shoot 3 and review then shoot 5 if not enough.
 
My skills in PS aren't good enough for exposure blending so my only option is HDR in LR, but IMO is does look more like blending than you're usual OTT HDR.

But with the use of filters and the wide DR of my camera multiple exposures isn't necessary.
 
SMR, as this is my full time job I'm going to tell you that BOTH are the answer.

There are times whereby it is far easier to use a grad than to blend. But then there are times when a grad just won't cut it or the light is very harsh and so HDR comes into it.

My photo in Glencoe is an example whereby I tried to grad it but even a soft grad just blacked out too much of the landscape. So I took two shots and the result is there for you to see. And you can see who represents the image so they can't think it's too bad either ;)

PS Here's an interior shot demonstating it doesn't have to look garish. On this occasion it was a similar thing. I took one photo that showed me scene in front of me how my eyes saw. Then using Live View made an underexposure to get the window.

the-choir-of-ripon-cathedral-picture-id683109581
 
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smr said:
but it looks time consuming indeed, and I'd have to study a course in Adobe Photoshop on layering/masks etc. which I have no idea about. If I can just use filters in front of my lens I think I'd rather do this instead and save all that faffing about. I realise filters might be more expensive but there'd be a lot of time involved in exposure blending by the look of it and time = money!
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This is a real attraction of grads to be fair. I enjoy photoshop so am happy with blending. However I think grads are good if you don't want to learn PS, and even if you do they are a good part of the photographic journey in making your own mind up anyway. One point I will make is if you decide against blending still shoot brackets (raw obviously) because one day you may know how to use them and wish you had that data!

If money was no object I'd just tell everyone to buy an a7ii/Rii or a d750/810. I've just got an a7ii and I can't believe the dynamic range coming from canon. I will blend 95% less often I expect. No argument about grads vs HDR vs blending, this camera is very close to it with one file, strangely enough with a 2stip soft grad it might achieve it and I've gone full circle!!
 
I prefer time outside rather than time behind a screen, so I use grads. Exposure blending is ok if I have no moving parts in my scene. Trees waving in the wind, people moving about, cars, horses, water etc. Even this can be fixed in post but with more time at a screen. The right combination of grads can result in a photo needing much less editing afterwards. That's why I use a square filter system. You can add/subtract/change the effect depending on the light and conditions. I find that the time taken setting everything up also makes me focus on what I'm taking a photo of. Is this shot really worth all the effort of getting the glass out and messing about? If it isn't - why am I taking it?

I used to be an exposure blending person. Now I use grads where I can - and that's purely to reduce the time spent in pp afterwards and to focus my attention on the scene in front of me. Exposure blending is quicker in the field for me. Meter for high, meter for low, bang out a shot at 1/2-1 stop intervals & done. Having both tools my arsenal helps, because sometimes a grad (or the grads I have) won't cover the range I want, or in the area I want. Knowing how to blend exposure gives me another option.
 
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No matter if you use grads or you don't use them; post production is something that will have to be learned.

very simple blending can be done in Photoshop using layer masks. It all sounds very complicated but isn't at all.

HDR has come a long way from when I got my first DSLR back in 2005. I've recently been having to redo some stuff and found that the Lightroom HDR is perfectly fine if you have got two decent exposures.
 
A goldmine of information and advice, thanks guys! As for the kind of photography I want to take now I'm looking to get a lot more into outdoor landscape photography.

The kind of photography I want to start pursuing now is by using, understanding and learning light - to use to much greater effect and hopefully improve my photography - and the the differences in dynamic range is something I really need to learn and try to get better at - I'm on a quest for balanced images with a balanced dynamic range rather than blown skies and dark foregrounds for example.

So I won't be shooting indoors or buildings and architecture - as much as I admire that photography I just want to photograph natural landscapes outdoors.

I have been considering selling all my gear / lenses etc. and going FF with a 6D but then you read about the dynamic range in the Sony a few posts up - like I say it's all about compromise!

Therefore think I will invest in some Graduated ND Filters, I like the idea of getting the image as right as possible in the field and as natural as possible. I understand I'll have to learn and develop my PP skills as well and can always bracket shots should I need to use things that filters can't - but I think using Grad NDs as well as will give me better scope overall and be something fun to learn.

That said, and for the type of photographs I want to take - seascapes/landscapes, which ND Grads would you recommend without breaking the bank? (Lee filters are unfortunately out of my budget - but I don't mind spending £150ish maybe slightly more.
 
smr said:
A goldmine of information and advice, thanks guys! As for the kind of photography I want to take now I'm looking to get a lot more into outdoor landscape photography.

The kind of photography I want to start pursuing now is by using, understanding and learning light - to use to much greater effect and hopefully improve my photography - and the the differences in dynamic range is something I really need to learn and try to get better at - I'm on a quest for balanced images with a balanced dynamic range rather than blown skies and dark foregrounds for example.

So I won't be shooting indoors or buildings and architecture - as much as I admire that photography I just want to photograph natural landscapes outdoors.

I have been considering selling all my gear / lenses etc. and going FF with a 6D but then you read about the dynamic range in the Sony a few posts up - like I say it's all about compromise!

Therefore think I will invest in some Graduated ND Filters, I like the idea of getting the image as right as possible in the field and as natural as possible. I understand I'll have to learn and develop my PP skills as well and can always bracket shots should I need to use things that filters can't - but I think using Grad NDs as well as will give me better scope overall and be something fun to learn.

That said, and for the type of photographs I want to take - seascapes/landscapes, which ND Grads would you recommend without breaking the bank? (Lee filters are unfortunately out of my budget - but I don't mind spending £150ish maybe slightly more.
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What gear do you have and what makes you want to sell in favour of FF?

As for filters have a look at the hitech resin range, good mid range filters. They do the firecrest range too but they're about as pricey as Lee.
 
smr said:
I like the idea of getting the image as right as possible in the field and as natural as possible.
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And this is the crux of the matter. Always remember that a solid division of a scene between light and dark with a straight line is not always natural. Be careful not to over grad a scene. Review your images. To begin with I would recommend a 2 stop only. If you go over and use a 3 stop, also shoot another with the 2 stop just incase you have over gradded it...
 
smr said:
Do I need a 3 stop when I could just use a 1 and 2 stop together though if needed?
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You could do this. There are some that will say the more 'glass' you put in front the more your image will degrade, but with good quality gear the difference should be negligible.
 
snerkler said:
What gear do you have and what makes you want to sell in favour of FF?

As for filters have a look at the hitech resin range, good mid range filters. They do the firecrest range too but they're about as pricey as Lee.
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Well I was thinking about selling my telephoto and macro lenses and camera etc. and just investing in landscape oriented gear alone but I like taking wildlife and macro photos - I do get torn between the idea of going full on landscape or feeling like a ' jack of all trades master of none! ' wish I could be more decisive!

I do really want to focus on getting better at landscape photography though.
 
smr said:
Well I was thinking about selling my telephoto and macro lenses and camera etc. and just investing in landscape oriented gear alone but I like taking wildlife and macro photos - I do get torn between the idea of going full on landscape or feeling like a ' jack of all trades master of none! ' wish I could be more decisive!

I do really want to focus on getting better at landscape photography though.
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What camera do you have?

TBH there's no such thing as a landscape camera. Yes large dynamic range can help, but people have managed perfectly well with cameras that don't. Do you look at landscapes taken with the Canon 5D3 and think they look poor? I very much doubt it, yet the DR of the 5D3 is actually relatively poor. Likewise some will say you want a camera like the D800/D810, or 5DS for the extra detail of the high MP sensors, but unless you're printing huge huge prints and standing a foot away or pixel peeping I doubt you'd see any discernible/significant difference. I do think not having the AA filter in cameras like the D810 does help though and I wish my camera didn't have one.

Now I'm not saying these things don't help, and since buying the D750 I've all but stopped bracketing as the DR and recovery in post is astounding, but it's not essential by any stretch and you will gain far more by learning technique and understanding light.
 
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