Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: fike on February 26, 2007, 04:56:59 pm
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I am trying to decide whether or not to invest in a graduated ND filter for my 30D with 17-40. I have heard some say that with Raw processing and digital layering, there is no need for graduated neutral density filters. I am not sure I agree.
Do you carry a graduated ND with your digital gear?
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Yes, for landscape photography I carry grad NDs. But I also use digital blending and other post-processing techniques as well. There are times and reasons to use both kinds of tools.
That said, my preference is to get the image as close to "final" at the time I take the picture -- definitely a carry-over from my film days.
Paul
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if you bracket there's no need, it would actually be more accurate and you could expose the sky in any way you want, though it does save time
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The only time a bracket is going to fall short is when there's motion __in the part of the frame where the transition occurs__ I've added emphasis since a standard reason for going with gnd's is motion, but it's actually relatively infrequent in my experience where the motion crosses the transition boundary.
It's quite a bit faster (certainly in the field) to take a couple of braket insurance shots than installing and aligning a gnd. And I'd argue that all in, it's still faster even if you add the incremental processing.
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The only time a bracket is going to fall short is when there's motion __in the part of the frame where the transition occurs__ I've added emphasis since a standard reason for going with gnd's is motion, but it's actually relatively infrequent in my experience where the motion crosses the transition boundary.
It's quite a bit faster (certainly in the field) to take a couple of braket insurance shots than installing and aligning a gnd. And I'd argue that all in, it's still faster even if you add the incremental processing.
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I have fond that with detailed transitions--like say tiny leafless branches in winter--there is rarely no movement at all. Also, I have found that is is frequently difficult to get the spaces between all those little inty branches without some sort of ghosting or bright fringing.
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I have fond that with detailed transitions--like say tiny leafless branches in winter--there is rarely no movement at all. Also, I have found that is is frequently difficult to get the spaces between all those little inty branches without some sort of ghosting or bright fringing.
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Fair enough, but a GND isn't going to solve that problem since the leaves and small patches of visible sky will both be equally subject to the filter. In this kind of scenario it's a no brainer to layer 2 shots and apply a gradient mask - mimicks 100% the use of a GND, but will total flexibility in how the filter is applied after the fact. HDR is a different discussion.
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Do you carry a graduated ND with your digital gear?
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I do, but I don't use them (I have four) that often anymore. In most cases I can get away with digital blending, and if I'm confident that's going to work I'll just do that. Often the darkest and lightest parts of the scene I want to capture aren't adjacent, and if I can get a capture that has decent unclipped data by using a GND, I'll give that a shot even if I'll have to do some digital cleanup after the fact. But even then I'll often back that up with a digital blend, and I find that even with things moving in the scene I can often work out a decent blend with the filterless shots.
Finally, GNDs are hard to work with when you're in a hurry, which can leave you all tangled up. [a href=\"http://www.rockslidephoto.com/pix/random/schoolofphotography.jpg]http://www.rockslidephoto.com/pix/random/s...photography.jpg[/url] (Photo courtesy and copyright Joshua Andrews).
--Joe