Filters

[0bli0]

a graduated ND filter would definitely help with the above scene. i'd probably start with a stop or so underexposure and then go from there.

 

[Merrywheather]

Thanks for all the great information!

 

[Groucho]

FWIW, on my recent trip, I didn't mount my new ND8 filter even once, and used my circular polarizer less than I thought I might have before I left. Maybe because I was switching lenses so much, I didn't feel like switching filters, too. But I did wear my filter wallet on my belt every day so they were there waiting for me. I also don't have a CP for the lens I probably used the most (31mm F1.8) and my second-most-common was my fisheye, which you can't put a polarizer on. I could have used one for my macro lens but my CP in that filter size is a cheapie and I didn't want to chance degrading my image. So basically, I mainly used it on my 50-135mm, and once or twice on my 28-75mm which I didn't use often. I do think it did help, when I did use it. FWIW, it's a Hoya HMC, which isn't too cheap but not to expensive, either - bought from Spotlight Camera on eBay, I've bought from them twice and had very good results both times.

I don't think you'll find much use for ND filters at Disney parks. If things are so bright that you'll need one, then chances are it's midday and very crowded, and you're trying to get a slow shutter speed so you'll probably want to use a tripod or at least monopod, which will be even more of a pain during the day than in the evening. You need to be really after the photo. Even with all the gear I have carried my past few trips, there are shots that I think would be good that I just can't be bothered to go through the effort of taking - and that's saying something.

I personally don't think a split will be very useful either, as you'll rarely see a clear, open horizon - most of the time, you're looking at various buildings and structures, and those'll get darkened along with the sky.

Again, just my opinions for Disney park trips only. Not applicable for non-Disney-park situations.

 

[fitzperry]

So dh asks me the other day if I'd like anything particular for mother's day, and I told him I want what every girl wants--a two-stop graduated neutral density filter for the wide angle lens I haven't ordered yet. I was looking at this one on B&H: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/394722-REG/Formatt_BF77SEND6G_77mm_Graduated_Neutral_Density.html

According to the specifications, it will rotate (I assume like a cp?). The comparable Tiffen says "not applicable" in that spot on the specs list. I've never used a split nd filter. How do you line it up correctly if it doesn't rotate? Am I just being dense (edited to apologize for the unintentional pun)?

Any thoughts?

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I don't know anything about Formatt. I will say that I have a strong personal preference for Cokin style GND filters. The Cokin style is a little plastic holder that screws onto the front of your lens. The filters are squares of filter material that you slide into the holder. Like the lens you described, you can rotate the holder. The big advantage is that you can slide the filter up and down (or left and right). No big deal for a polarizer, but for a GND, that means that you can stick the "horizon" line right where you want it.

 

[fitzperry]

I don't know anything about Formatt. I will say that I have a strong personal preference for Cokin style GND filters. The Cokin style is a little plastic holder that screws onto the front of your lens. The filters are squares of filter material that you slide into the holder. Like the lens you described, you can rotate the holder. The big advantage is that you can slide the filter up and down (or left and right). No big deal for a polarizer, but for a GND, that means that you can stick the "horizon" line right where you want it.

That's a good point. I like to travel as light as possible, so a simple filter seemed preferable. But I'll look at the Cokin and similar some more.

 

[Golf4food]

I am ready to delve into the world of filters (beyond the UV that we already have as protection more than anything) - what do you more experienced persons consider essential in the world of filters? Based on what I know so far I am leaning towards, at minimum, the following:

Circular Polarizer
Graduated ND
Color Warming

Anything else that would be good (for mostly landscapes or indoor portraits, etc.)? Brand recommendations?

 

[Master Mason]

All I currently have is the CP's, I have thought about ND's but haven't made the plunge yet.

Personally I wouldn't buy a colored filter, because you can do any of that in PP with digital.

The only other one that interests me at all is one of the Star Filters for long exposure night shots.

As for brand, mine are Hoya's. Remember that if you have an expensive lens and put a cheap filter in front of it, then you will have severely degraded the quality of the lens with that.

 

[Golf4food]

All I currently have is the CP's, I have thought about ND's but haven't made the plunge yet.

Personally I wouldn't buy a colored filter, because you can do any of that in PP with digital.

The only other one that interests me at all is one of the Star Filters for long exposure night shots.

As for brand, mine are Hoya's. Remember that if you have an expensive lens and put a cheap filter in front of it, then you will have severely degraded the quality of the lens with that.

I am thinking of the color warming filter because I take photos for my office (employee awards and such) and we have horrid florecent lighting that makes everything yellow no matter what I do to the white balance, other settings, or do in photoshop. I am thinking that the color filter might allow me to use flash and get a better result on those. (I take them all outside whenever possible, though.)

Anyone have comments on Tiffen filters or any other brand recommendations? (Nothing against Hoya, I have a Hoya UV now, just looking at all options.)

 

[Master Mason]

I am thinking of the color warming filter because I take photos for my office (employee awards and such) and we have horrid florecent lighting that makes everything yellow no matter what I do to the white balance, other settings, or do in photoshop. I am thinking that the color filter might allow me to use flash and get a better result on those. (I take them all outside whenever possible, though.)

Anyone have comments on Tiffen filters or any other brand recommendations? (Nothing against Hoya, I have a Hoya UV now, just looking at all options.)

For the horrid floresents get an 18% gray card and set your own custom WB. The one I have came from www.balancesmarter.com it is pretty slick

 

[boBQuincy]

One concern if you use a UV filter is to take it off before using other filters. Stacking filters multiplies any image degradation, especially flare.

The only filter I normally use is a polarizer. I have a 8X ND for lowering shutter speed on bright days but rarely use it. Instead of a split ND I use HDR with three images.

 

[MICKEY88]

I am thinking of the color warming filter because I take photos for my office (employee awards and such) and we have horrid florecent lighting that makes everything yellow no matter what I do to the white balance, other settings, or do in photoshop. I am thinking that the color filter might allow me to use flash and get a better result on those. (I take them all outside whenever possible, though.)

Anyone have comments on Tiffen filters or any other brand recommendations? (Nothing against Hoya, I have a Hoya UV now, just looking at all options.)

you should be able to color correct in photoshop,


I take pics in my office all the time, and color correction is simple with PAint shop pro..

 

[Golf4food]

you should be able to color correct in photoshop,


I take pics in my office all the time, and color correction is simple with PAint shop pro..

The software I have available is basic Microsoft picture editor on the work computer, and an old version of PSP5 that is many years old and behind the times. I am by no means skilled in the arts of digital photo manipulation.

 

[mabas9395]

Try posting a sample of one of your office pictures. A lot of us love tweaking other people's photos. Maybe we can help you find a way of fixing them with the tools you have.

I have the same problem you do taking pictures in my church's gymnasium; fourecent lights plus a yellow cast to the basketball court floor. Pictures of my son's cub scout meetings look awful. Do you use a flash in your office? In my case, the yellow from the gym plus the blue from the flash equals a white balance nightmare. Custom W/B is the best way to go.

 

[DueyDooDah]

I, too, would suggest you forego the colored filters. Everything can be done in post-processing (still a stupid term to me. either you're processing or you are not.)

Now, if you are shooting JPG, you will have trouble correcting for the lighting in your office. If you have the option on the camera, set white balance to tungsten or white florescent (depending on the lighting) before the shot. This should help.

If your shooting RAW, then your camera surely came with some type of software that will help. It will have the capability to change the WB quite easily and it will not be necessary to set it on the camera. If you don't have the software, your manufacturer may have it available for download.

 

[Groucho]

You'll definitely want to start shooting in Raw if you're getting yellowy colors indoors (as virtually every digital camera will under tungsten lights) - Raw makes it completely trivial to adjust the colors later, which you just can't do as well with a jpg. Assuming that you're using a DSLR, your camera probably already came with conversion software that can do these kind of adjustments. You may also want to invest in a better photo editor rather than filters - I know the full version of Photoshop can replicate any number of color filters.

I have an ND8 filter but haven't really gotten around to using it yet. I do have a star filter also but rarely use it (I didn't use it at all on my last WDW trip, but did a few times on the penultimate one). For Disney use, I don't think a graduated ND would make much sense, I think those are probably mainly useful for open landscapes.

Getting back to color filters... they may still have applications in the digital world, but not so much for tinting colors but rather for situations where one particular color is much brighter than others. You could use a filter to darken the overbright color, in order to grab more light from the other colors, and post-process it later to give you the colors that you want. But I'm not running out and buying any, that's too much bother for me at this point.

 

[Golf4food]

I have not tried shooting the office shots in RAW, only JEPG under all the various WB settings. I will try the next one in RAW and see what happens.

I would be using the graduated ND outdoors for nature/landscapes out in the open, not at Disney so much.

For the record, my camera is a Pentax ist*DL.

I am afraid that my current PC would not hold up to a fully modern photo processing program - so I'd not only have to spend a few hundred on the program, but many hundred more on a PC to run it! It can handle PSP5, but the newer ones are bigger and require more RAM - since one of my RAM slots are dead I'm only really running around 1.5GB of RAM at the moment and the HD is getting full (I also do music and the music program and files are huge.) So I don't know that updating my software at the momet will work too well. When I am able to replace the computer I will certainly be updating all of the software, especially the photo editing.

 

[NostalgicDad]

I currently have but carefully use my CPLs. You'll want to make sure the sun is at a right angle to the subject or you won't realize the effect of polarization if, for instance, the sun is directly behind you. Also, you'll want to be really careful when using with an ultra wide angle lens. If not, you can get some really strange looking deep blue skies on one side of the frame. Also with wide angle lenses, you'll want to use a thin CPL to avoid vignetting. However, they can help a great deal with glare though and I wouldn't totally discount using them as they can be really useful. In fact, I think it's almost a necessity to have one in the bag. The brand I use is Hoya and I've found their Pro1 Digital line to be pretty good quality. Another good brand I've used is B+W.

I also use the Cokin Z-Pro filter holder for using the 4x5" GND filters. It's pretty versatile and allows you to use up to 3 4x5" filters to achieve less light transmission or unique effect. The holder can be rotatated as needed depending on the scene. I currently use the soft edge .6 (2 stop) and .9 (3 stop) Hi-Tech brand 4x5" filters as they seem to do the trick at a reasonable price. The Singh-Ray brand is the most expensive. These filters use a neutral gray tone that reduce light transmission but don't affect color. Although, I have used these at the parks, they are best suited for landscape and wide open scenery shots as Groucho mentioned.

I'm also on the bandwagon of not buying color warming filters. It's just too easy to achieve these effects in PP rather than buying and fumbling around with the filters in the field.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Count me in with the "don't use colored filters" crowd.

Be aware, however, that there is a limit to what you can correct with white balance. If you have different colored light sources, white balancing won't solve your problem. If you correct the green cast from the flourescent lights, you'll add a magenta cast to the sunlight.

If you want to be picky about color balancing, you should consider gels for your flashes and lights. You can use them to balance (or unbalance if that's what you want) the light itself rather than trying to correct it yourself. A good example is using fill in flash during a sunset. The daylight white of the flash will look out of place with the warm glow of the setting sun. You'll be happier if you stick an orange gel on your flash for that shot.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

You also want to be aware that reflected light can screw with your colors. I remember taking some shots of people standing in the sun on a beautiful green golf course. They were wearing visors and I didn't have any juice left in my flash for fill in. I figured I'd just bump up the shadows in Photoshop. When I did that, I quickly discovered that the light in the shadows was primarily coming from the sunlight bouncing off the grass. It was really, really green.