Lee ND Grad Filters: Which One?

[JoeKitchen]

So I just priced out a project in Bermuda with a built in weather day.  On the off chance that I get this project and if the weather day turns out to be nice, I would plan on exploring the island and doing some landscape photography.  I have the Lee Filter System with a polarizer and ND filter, but have never bought any of the graded filters. 

If I were to buy one hard and one soft grad ND filter, which filters would be the most versatile choice?

Also, I have never been to Bermuda; is the island safe, low crime? 

[Scott Hargis]

Personally I think the 2-stop filters are the sweet spot; less than that and you may as well do it in post, more than that and the shot is likely to lose some of it's authenticity -- it's like HDR, you compress the dynamic range too far and you cross into the "uncanny valley".
I use Schneider filters but I also own a Lee 2-stop soft grad. Schneiders have less color issues but they're pricey (and they break when you drop them).

[gazwas]

Without doubt the most versatile is the 0.6 ND hard grad however its very difficult to recommend a soft grad because the graduation on the LEE soft grads is so gentle and would depend very much on what format you are using and lens focal Length.

For example, a 35mm sendor is so small that to get the darker portion of the filter (2 stop cut section) covering the sky on a soft grad would mean covering most of the image with the filter. I always thought soft reads worked best with 5x4 etc. The cut of the hard grads is not as harsh as you think so a 0.6 hard (2 stop) might be all you need.

If you do decide to get a soft I would go for a 0.9 (3 stop) version as I even have the 1.2 soft (4 stop) and sometimes have to stack with a hard grad to tame some skys, especially at the horizon otherwise it effects the foreground too much. And while the MFD manufacturers take great pride in telling us how much bigger the chips are they use, 645 is still a small format and is effected in a similar ish way when using soft grads.

[JoeKitchen]

Thanks guys.

Something that did concern me was the color cast issue.  I assume if I am only getting one or two, the Schneider filters may be worth 3x the price of the Lees.  

[Chris Barrett]

I have a couple Lees arriving today.  Hard and soft in .9  I figured if it was a situation where I really needed a Grad, that I would probably need 3 stops.  We'll see.  I haven't really used them at all since 4x5 film days.

The way that they typically discolor is for the darker areas to go more red... from the ones I used over the years.  Good news is, if you shoot an LCC with the grad in place, it'll fix that right up.  I just mentioned this somewhere, in another thread... or another forum.  Bare with me... the wife and I have given up coffee for a week.

CB

[gazwas]

Colour cast problems never posed an issue with P65+ and SK43XL when I used LEE ND grad filters but I was using the centre filter on the 43.

[NancyP]

I use Lee soft grad 0.6 because I have trees on rolling hills as skyline where I live. My guess is that you will need a hard grad, because you will likely be shooting a straight horizon (sea) in Bermuda. Reverse grad (slightly hard grad at the bottom gradient, very soft grad at the top gradient - I have Hitech 0.9) is useful for sunrise / sunset with relatively flat horizons (all those corn fields for me, Bermuda sea for you). I have no experience with the Lee hard grad. 135 format camera (Canon 6D, hence old-fashioned taming of DR), use 21mm and 35mm lenses most often, occasionally 50mm.

[David Patterson]

I have moved back to using grad filters in some situations. I used a .06 grad on this image to reduce the lower right 1/3 of the image. I was shooting through an open door with large windows flanking, sun behind me.I used black cloth and white scrim to control brightness and keep some modeling to the light but still needed 2 stops of control, could have used an overhead double black scrim but the filter worked well here and was easier to use. This discussion ties back to thought of smoother, faster workflow, shot with the Actus, a7r and Contax 35pc.

[wayne_eddy]

I have the set of three that LEE have to offer in the kit and truthfully have seldom used them, though I do often carry them with me.

There are a couple of reasons why I don't use them:
Set up time.
The sky and light moves so quickly that the clouds move and I don't get what I set out visualizing.
I can just take two exposures anyway and blend them later in PS.

[jerryw]

So I just priced out a project in Bermuda with a built in weather day.  On the off chance that I get this project and if the weather day turns out to be nice, I would plan on exploring the island and doing some landscape photography.  I have the Lee Filter System with a polarizer and ND filter, but have never bought any of the graded filters. 

If I were to buy one hard and one soft grad ND filter, which filters would be the most versatile choice?

Also, I have never been to Bermuda; is the island safe, low crime? 

Of course, it really depends on the DR you expect in the average scene you are shooting.  For landscape, my knee-jerk if I was limited to 1 filter would be the 3-stop 0.9.