First use of my ND filter

vangogh · April 21, 2006

I used my ND 4 graduated filter yesterday for the 1st time & I'm not 100% happy with the results. What did I do wrong?

It was a grey cloudy day anyway, but I thought I'd use the filter to cut out some glare from the sky.

Here's an example of what I got, before & after with a curve & levels adjustment

After

Some of the pics are really very grey & take a lot of adjustment.

Any ideas please!

Thanks

gluwater · April 21, 2006

What I think you meant to use in this situation is a Graduated ND filter, not just a regular ND filter. An ND filter will darken the entire scene, they are mainly used to get longer exposures for such things as smooth flowing water.

Stan · April 21, 2006

The camera will see the darkened scene with the filter and compensate with a longer exposure, resulting in the same image as without the filter.

As Gluwater says,you needed a graduated filter.

If you have Photoshop, open the image, create a new layer and fill it with a gradient tool. To do this, click the 'set foreground colour' and fill it with white, then click the 'set background colour' and make it grey. With the white on top run the line from the bottom of the pic to the top and see the results. Try again with the bottom of the line on the bottom of thr pic and stop the line on the roof line. Then try again with a longer line until you are happy with the effect. reset the white point it either curves or levels and tweek saturation.

Stan

Matthew Saville · April 21, 2006

Hi vangogh,

If I read your topic correctly, you did indeed use a "graduated" filter, presumably to bring down the bright sky of course.

The only thing I can assume you are unhappy with is the overall darkness of your exposure. To this, I can advise:

Try not to trust your in-camera light meter 100%, especially with a filter like this on the camera. "Shoot for the histogram" as they say, and more specifically shoot for the highlights. Increase the overall exposure (without moving the GND filter) until your exposure is mostly towards the right-hand side of the the camera's histogram, or if you havea highlight "blinker" warning option on the LCD, just barely blow a tiny bit of highlights. Then either back off 1/3 stop or leave it there, depending on whether or not the blown highlights are important.

THEN play with the GND filter, moving it up or down to get the best effect. You should be able to get a result straight from the camera that looks exactly like your 2nd, photoshopped image.

Usually on a cloudy day with in-direct sunlight, I'd use a 1-2 stop GND with a soft edge. I hope that is along the lines of what you used!

-Matt-

vangogh · April 22, 2006

Matthew Saville wrote:

Hi vangogh,

If I read your topic correctly, you did indeed use a "graduated" filter, presumably to bring down the bright sky of course.

The only thing I can assume you are unhappy with is the overall darkness of your exposure. To this, I can advise:

Try not to trust your in-camera light meter 100%, especially with a filter like this on the camera. "Shoot for the histogram" as they say, and more specifically shoot for the highlights. Increase the overall exposure (without moving the GND filter) until your exposure is mostly towards the right-hand side of the the camera's histogram, or if you havea highlight "blinker" warning option on the LCD, just barely blow a tiny bit of highlights. Then either back off 1/3 stop or leave it there, depending on whether or not the blown highlights are important.

THEN play with the GND filter, moving it up or down to get the best effect. You should be able to get a result straight from the camera that looks exactly like your 2nd, photoshopped image.

Usually on a cloudy day with in-direct sunlight, I'd use a 1-2 stop GND with a soft edge. I hope that is along the lines of what you used!

-Matt-

Yes you're right, I was using a Graduated filter! I don't have a DSLR so I don't unfortunately have a histogram to look at. I was just going by the camera's metre, as you guessed. Yes its was just the overall darkness I'm concerned about really. I had the metre so it was reading just under the middle or the range. I moved the GND down quite a lot because on the monitor I couldn't see any effect. Maybe I moved it down too much.

Thanks for your comments. I guess its just a cse of practice really

Mike Lane · April 22, 2006

No DSLR? Could the problem be that your camera does not have through the lens metering? If you don't have a TTL system, your exposure will of course be much darker than you expect. Without a TTL, the camera isn't aware that you have the filter on and meters the scene like normal. You'll have to compensate by overexposing the scene a bit.

Matthew Saville · April 23, 2006

Mike Lane wrote:

No DSLR? Could the problem be that your camera does not have through the lens metering? If you don't have a TTL system, your exposure will of course be much darker than you expect. Without a TTL, the camera isn't aware that you have the filter on and meters the scene like normal. You'll have to compensate by overexposing the scene a bit.

Most P&S digital cameras meter TTL, don't they? I wouldn't know.

I have seen ND grad filters used very skillfully on a P&S digital camera, namely the Olympus 8080 wich is a fantastic landscape photography alternative when you must travel light but don't want to give up the usage of things like your filters...

(trying to use a filter on a P&S digital camera that has a teeny-tiny lens like the new "flat" digitals is near-impossible, but when you have a lens that's a little larger, like on the Olympus 8080, you're dealing with about the same size as the old, 52mm front-thread lenses from 35mm cameras, and you can get a lot better results with filters.

-Matt-

vangogh · April 23, 2006

Matthew Saville wrote:

Most P&S digital cameras meter TTL, don't they? I wouldn't know.

I have seen ND grad filters used very skillfully on a P&S digital camera, namely the Olympus 8080 wich is a fantastic landscape photography alternative when you must travel light but don't want to give up the usage of things like your filters...

(trying to use a filter on a P&S digital camera that has a teeny-tiny lens like the new "flat" digitals is near-impossible, but when you have a lens that's a little larger, like on the Olympus 8080, you're dealing with about the same size as the old, 52mm front-thread lenses from 35mm cameras, and you can get a lot better results with filters.

-Matt-

I use a Fuji Finepix s602 Zoom. It has TTL & a 55mm lens. I just got my film SLR back from the camera repair shop (slipping over in the monsoon mud in India & using your camera to break your fall is definitely not something I'd recommend for your zoom lenses! Very expensive

) Next plan is to get a DSLR

. Trying to sell my Virago at the moment to pay for it so if anyone wants a j reg Maroon Virago with 18,000 on the clock & only lady owners email me privately lol. I'll do you a good price

First use of my ND filter

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