Opinions sought, graduated ND filters for landscape photography.

[zeugma]

Hi folks,
I would like to experiment with these and would welcome input from fellow members...
I use Canon kit and these would be used with the 24-70 f/2.8 and 16-35 f/2.8 primarily I suspect.
I have decided NOT to go with the Lee option due to cost and availability issues, as this is a first toe in the water for me.
Currently, I am looking at the Formatt Hitech range.
From what I can gather, I would require a 100mm holder with 77mm and 82mm wide rings.
As regards the filters themselves, I am undecided as to whether to go for 100x100 or 100x150 resin filters. 100x150 would give me more horizon 'wriggle room' I suspect.
AS to the grads, I have to decide between a hard and soft edge set (0.3, 0.6, 0.9).
In respect of a lens hood, I would imagine that even if you could could attach one, you would end up with vignetting.

All sage input most gratefully received

 

[Sharky]

Have a look at the Nisi v5 system (£103 from Amazon), i got mine as an alternative to the Lee holder system as i felt it was much better value and is very well made. Forget your lens hood it's not going to fit once the filter system is attached.

 

[Stu Meech]

I was under the impression that Hitech filters are pretty much the same price as Lee ones these days?

Anyway, definitely go for the 100x150 sized filters, especially on full frame and wide lenses.

What do you want to shoot more? In terms of how you go with buying hard or soft grads. I personally don't own any soft grads and it never seems to hold me back.

 

[EdwardL]

The lens hood won't work with filters

The reason is the adaptor (77 and 82mm rings you mention) does not accommodate for it. I went down the Hitech route and have ended up with the following:

Circular Polarising Filter (Kenko, I think)
100mm Hitech holder, the one you're mentioning
Adaptor ring
10-stopper
100mm x 100mm 0.6 (two stop) neutral density filter
100mm x 150mm 0.9 (three stop) graduating filter

I chose these as I received a landscape photography book for a Christmas present and in the back there is a list of all the photographs and all the filters they used and these were the most common, by a siginificant margin.

If it's any help, I have a Canon full frame and mainly use these on my 17-40mm lens.

 

[woof woof]

All sage input most gratefully received

Can't really remember the last time I used my grads to be honest and I wouldn't sink any significant money into them. I've mostly used ND's to reduce shutter speed for time or to use wider apertures other than that my filters just gather dust.

 

[Dave-G]

It really depends on what you want to shoot. You may not need the full range to start with. I'd check with issues on any holder for vignetting on the 16-35. I used a Cokin z pro holder for years with little issue once I took one set of the sliders off, which is just four screws. One thing that is good is that you can generally use different filters on different holders. I have actually switched to Lee now just for the polariser holder on the front. I am still using some Cokin ND grads while I migrate though. While you can use gradient filters in software, they are only useful aslong as you have all of the highlight information. I prefer to fix what I can before I process.