Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: drralph on March 17, 2018, 11:04:45 am
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Is there still a role for graduated neutral density filters in this age of naturally rendered HDR? I am looking to lighten my kit, and one idea is to ditch the square filters and filter holder, and go with circular filters (ND and polarizer). The only thing missing would be the family of graduates. Do folks still find the GNDs indispensable?
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Is there still a role for graduated neutral density filters in this age of naturally rendered HDR? I am looking to lighten my kit, and one idea is to ditch the square filters and filter holder, and go with circular filters (ND and polarizer). The only thing missing would be the family of graduates. Do folks still find the GNDs indispensable?
Hi,
IMHO, the only benefit of GNDs is with lots of subject motion. Maybe another benefit comes from simpler postprocessing.
HDRI and good tonemapping, behaves much more like the human eye does, pupil contraction over bright parts (local darkening) of the scene, and pupil dilation over dark regions (local brightening). So if done well, it looks more natural.
Cheers,
Bart
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I still use the filters, being doing so for many years, no problem.
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Hi,
I feel that modern cameras have an amazing density range so HDR is seldom necessary.
Best regards
Erik
Is there still a role for graduated neutral density filters in this age of naturally rendered HDR? I am looking to lighten my kit, and one idea is to ditch the square filters and filter holder, and go with circular filters (ND and polarizer). The only thing missing would be the family of graduates. Do folks still find the GNDs indispensable?
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It is possible to easily replicate the effect of a graduated filter both in Lightroom and Photoshop.
But some people get pleasure out of the business of selecting the right graduated filter and adjusting it on the camera, it's all part of the enjoyment of taking a photograph.
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Hi,
I think graduated filters have both advantages and disadvantages.
On the plus side:
- They absorb some of the light falling on the lens. So it is possible they reduce flare.
- Using graduated filters is adressing the cause of the problem
On the minus side:
- The graduated filter may not match the area that needs to be darkened.
- The graduated filter introduces extra glass in the optical path. High quality filters may have little effect, but I think I have observed degraduation of the image.
- The holder needs to replace the lens shade. is it as effective than the purpose built lens shade.
- We can pull a lot of detail from a DSLR. What can be done with graduated filters may be as well done using the highlight slider in LR.
- Highlight and shadow sliders in Lightroom do local adaption, so they tend to keep subjective contrast.
- Making an an additional exposure and doing simple HDR in say Lightroom is much more efficient. Fiddling to much with equipment may cause us to miss the picture.
Best regards
Erik
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With excellent tools available for luminosity masking, I'm doing more brackets and using normally just two out of five frames. Luminosity masking really is an excellent way to blend images.
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No longer need except for sunsets on flat horizons or ocean.
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I would say a good circular polarizer has a lot of value to my landscape work though.
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As a user of a 3100 which has lots of DR a Lee 2 stop soft grad is a staple for me. I never want to burn out clouds and always prefer to bring down overcast skies to more match the landscape. I use C1 exclusively which has wondrous abilities to bring up shadows so I rarely use HDR or Tone Mapping but appreciate skillful use....
Victor