Graduated ND Filter help

[Damonik]

Hi there all,
I'm a new poster to this forum and thought I'd start off (like most people do!) asking for some help.

I've recently upgraded to a 50d and I'm absolutely loving the camera. Whilst I was in the shop, I decided to try out Lee Filters and picked up a 2 stop soft ND Grad filter as I was about to head to visit the gorge country in NW Australia and figured this would be a great place to use a ND Grad filter.

However once I got there, I really struggled to get pictures that were exposed properly. I'd end up with an over exposed sky, under exposed gorge walls, or vice versa. I'll post a few examples of the pictures I ended up with once I got home.

If anyone has some advice on how to compose and take a shot using ND grad filters, I'd love to hear it. Perhaps I needed a 3 stop grad, either way I wasn't able to get a decent shot :/

I did end up with a few shots that I liked, but wasn't overly impressed with my pictures, need more time and practice. However, didn't end up with a single picture using the grad filters that I considered worthwhile.

[wulf]

You need to have a filter that underexposes the bright part of the image by an appropriate amount. It may be that your filter wasn't strong enough to correct the relative brightness of the sky.

I haven't yet got round to buying any filters; when I need that effect, I take a couple of images with different shutter speeds and blend them together in post processing. This also has the advantage of working well when the light and dark portions aren't separated by a straight line.

Wulf

[jiggy]

Meter off the ground(or darker area) or so ive read somewhere hope this helps !!!

[Murtasma]

I have discovered the same problem, you really need an assortment of ND filters of various stops for them to be effective for you out in the field.

[Wombat]

Just my 2 cents.

I presume that you know that ND filters do nothing else but reduce the amount the light is getting into your camera.

If you really want to use ND in different lightning conditions i would suggest spot metering (this is what many pro landscape pro are using).

They are very good in bright conditions (full sun) where you like to shoot with longer exposure time.

Regards

[Damonik]

Originally Posted by Wombat

Just my 2 cents.

I presume that you know that ND filters do nothing else but reduce the amount the light is getting into your camera.

If you really want to use ND in different lightning conditions i would suggest spot metering (this is what many pro landscape pro are using).

They are very good in bright conditions (full sun) where you like to shoot with longer exposure time.

Regards

Hi Wombat,
Yes I'm aware of what ND filters do. Looks like I need to go visit the camera store and get a 3 stop ND grad and see what I can do with it, obviously things were too bright for the 2 stop.

[wulf]

Before you head out and buy more, perhaps you could do some homework to figure out what kind of filter you need? Pick a typical scene that causes you trouble. What settings do you need to get the foreground well exposed? What settings get the sky well exposed?

From there, you should be able to figure out how many stops are needed to compensate. Here I get a little bit fuzzy (a chance for me to be corrected and learn) but I think a "stop down" is any step that halves the amount of light getting into the shutter speed - halving the ISO, doubling the shutter speed or narrowing the aperture to the next setting on the standard progression (f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, etc).

Wulf