Graduated filters; Lens or Lightroom?

[Jamzano]

My wife bought me a set of graduated filters for Christmas and I am wondering if anyone still uses actual filters on lenses anymore since Lightroom has the ability to add a graduated filter in post processing.

I would love to hear what others are doing.

[navcom]

In a word....absolutely! ND grads alter the light before it is captured by the camera. This means that it also effects the color before capture as well. By using a filter first, you are allowing your camera to capture more realistic color and preserve as much detail as possible.

Lightroom (or most post-processing software) is a wonderful thing. I wouldn't live without it! But if you have to rely on the ND grad feature in Lightroom to correct dynamic range after the image is taken, it's too late.

ND grads are used to control dynamic range. In other words, they are used to "push back" the exposure in a portion of the scene to bring it into a range that the camera can properly capture. By this very fact, they need to be "applied" before the image is captured. Without the filter, that portion of the image will be overexposed (or at least unrealistic to the true colors that were produced in the scene) and much of the detail as well as the true colors will be washed out and will never be captured to begin with. You can't fix what what was never captured and is not there to fix. The Lightroom feature is really nothing more than a localized exposure adjustment but it can't restore lost color that results from the original image being overexposed.

That being said, I do use the Lightroom ND grad feature for very minor adjustments, which it can work for in a pinch. Or, if you get home from that once-in-a-lifetime photo shoot and you messed up, such as used a slightly less powerful ND grad than you should have, it is at least an option to spare an otherwise ruined image.

You will find that most professional photographers still rely on ND grads. There is no 100% substitute. Even HDR can have it's limitations regarding quality due to the fact that it is altering pixels instead of light, although it is also a good tool in your toolkit.

Hope that helps!

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by navcom

In a word....absolutely! ND grads alter the light before it is captured by the camera. This means that it also effects the color before capture as well. By using a filter first, you are allowing your camera to capture more realistic color and preserve as much detail as possible.

+1000

I love and use my grads and ND filters all the time! Not just ND grads either. I picked up a set with a holder at one point because nobody had just the holder. Along with 2 other filters, it also came with a blue grad... well, blue grads don't work well with clouds, but they work great getting the ocean just a little bluer. Like navcom I'll use the LR features as well, but the filters are just a massive time saver and get the photo much closer to right from the get go.

[sk66]

only filters I use on camera are A Variable ND so I can get slower shutter speeds, and a CPL for glare/reflections....Other than that it's in post (because I hate transition lines where they don't belong)