recommend a filter

Ideo

what sort of filter would you recommend for nature/landscape photography? im also going to everest this summer so something that will enhance that - is it tricky trying to get the white balance of snow??

mishima

The only ones I know of that produce really cool results are:
Cokin Gradual Grey (neutral) A120
Cokin Gradual Grey (neutral) A121

Check out http://robertmekis.deviantart.com/gallery/ to see what they can do. I don't really know anything about filters but thought I'd post this. They might be what you're loking for!

Roen

Circular Polariser straight away, If you're heading to Kala Patar or base camp you'll want to use a pretty strong UV filter as the amount of UV knocking about at altitude is significantly higher than at sea level.
For more general use a grey grad filter is fantastic.

Shiny

The white balence of snow is tricky but the advantage
of snow is that it is white.

So just aim your camera at it and set a custom
white balance. (shoot raw)

mtracey

Definitely neutral grads, a must for landscape.
Depending on the size of your lenses, you might be better off with P-Types instead of A-types.

Alun

Shiny wrote:

The white balance of snow is tricky but the advantage
of snow is that it is white.

You still need to over expose by a stop or two to get the exposure right though.

Fionn

circular polarising filter certainly!! and remember it's only really effective when used at 90 degree angles to the sun.

Harsh climate for a camera too, it'll test any camera to it's limits and beyond

Fajitas!

Alun wrote:

You still need to over expose by a stop or two to get the exposure right though.

Underexpose no?

Roen

Fajitas! wrote:

Underexpose no?

Over! Be 2 stops.

440Hz

Dont mean to cut in there but seeing as its not entirely OT - Any got any decent links for Cokin stockists then? SO far buying from a shop :shock horror:.. you know those buildings where you go, hand over money (typically everything in your wallet) and leave with a product in your hand... An Post dont get a look in... anyway... online Cokin... any tips?

Alun

Fajitas! wrote:

Underexpose no?

Nope .. remember that the metering system in the camera is attempting, for a normally balanced scene, to average the complete scene out to a neutral grey. It'll do this for a predominantly white snow scene too, resulting in a muddy. murky grey cast on what is supposed to be bright white snow. So you overexpose by 2 stops to compensate. It's a bit counter-intuitive until you think about it.

FinoBlad

scooby_doo_no1 wrote:

what sort of filter would you recommend for nature/landscape photography? im also going to everest this summer so something that will enhance that - is it tricky trying to get the white balance of snow??

If you have UV / Polariser / Grads, you might consider Lee Filters Sky Blue set in case your skies are grey or dull. See the linky for more info

http://www.leefilters.com/CPEF.asp?PageID=85

FinoBlad

440Hz wrote:

Dont mean to cut in there but seeing as its not entirely OT - Any got any decent links for Cokin stockists then? SO far buying from a shop :shock horror:.. you know those buildings where you go, hand over money (typically everything in your wallet) and leave with a product in your hand... An Post dont get a look in... anyway... online Cokin... any tips?

http://www.warehouseexpress.com/ have a good selection of the different brands inc Cokin.

They have a silly frames site so I cant send you the direct link but go "Photographic" and then "Filters" on the long menu on the left hand side.

440Hz

FinoBlad wrote:

http://www.warehouseexpress.com/ have a good selection of the different brands inc Cokin.

They have a silly frames site so I cant send you the direct link but go "Photographic" and then "Filters" on the long menu on the left hand side.

Cheers!!! Appreciate it

GristlyEnd

@440Hz -If you are going to purchase filters from waerhouseexpress, I will go halves on postage if your interested. I'm looking for a Cokin filter as well.

Fajitas!

Alun wrote:

Nope .. remember that the metering system in the camera is attempting, for a normally balanced scene, to average the complete scene out to a neutral grey. It'll do this for a predominantly white snow scene too, resulting in a muddy. murky grey cast on what is supposed to be bright white snow. So you overexpose by 2 stops to compensate. It's a bit counter-intuitive until you think about it.

Ah!

magicbastarder

easiest cheap way to get the exposure right is to meter off a grey card. it's the shade of grey the camera is expecting, and it means the camera won't be fooled by the snow.

Ideo

how do you meter off a grey card? never heard of a grey card before:o

that might be a good tutorial?

magicbastarder

you can buy them for about a tenner in town. just place it in the same light as the subject you want to photograph, and meter from it.

metering is about the amount of light falling on your subject, not the amount being reflected. that's why differing subjects can fool the meter.

Ideo

DarrenG wrote:

@440Hz -If you are going to purchase filters from waerhouseexpress, I will go halves on postage if your interested. I'm looking for a Cokin filter as well.

im probably going to buy a couple things if you want to split the postage three ways? could be kind of expensiveish!

Ideo

im probably going to go for the p series of cokin filters as i imagine i will be mostly shooting below 35mm. it recommends that above 35mm you should go with the a series but as the p series filters are actually larger in size surely the p series could be used above 35mm? any ideas?

311

Cokin P was recommended to me by gunnes cameras ,the set is fine.
Theres a special holder for wide angle lenses though ,so if you were expecting the holder to fit a wide angle lens ,you'll need a special one.

Rudekid

It is very difficult to remove mistakes made with filters.
Most of the effects that filters give can be created with Photoshop. I have a major problem with putting a few euros worth of glass in front of a much more expensive lens.
Snow is tricky as your exposure meter does not understand white as a colour as it has no texture. So it will make it look grey. Film camera users will be familiar with always over exposing their snow shots by 2 stops. This brought the snow back to white.
However with Digital cameras you can do it later Photoshop (Ajust Curves). Shoot Raw or Tiff files if you have the space. This format will stop the snow loosing tonal depth.
The only filter that I might use would be a Hoya Circular Polarizer. It deepens the Blue sky and make the clouds look clumpy. Again this can also be achieved in Photoshop too ( Ajust Curves).
Good luck.
R

magicbastarder

surely you should be going for a proper exposure each time, rather than underexposing and compensating in PS?

also, underexposing RAW is a bad idea.

Rudekid

Yes I agree the correct exposure would be better. If you switch the exposure comp up two stops that will work for the snow shots. Can be a bit risky though if you forget to put it back. Believe me in my experience most people do. I
I have a place in the French Jura mountains and I prefer to use photoshop on my shots though. I can work with underexposed shots much easier.
If you know how to use photoshop a slightly underexposed Raw file is no problem.

JMcL

Rudekid wrote:

Yes I agree the correct exposure would be better. If you switch the exposure comp up two stops that will work for the snow shots. Can be a bit risky though if you forget to put it back. Believe me in my experience most people do. I
I have a place in the French Jura mountains and I prefer to use photoshop on my shots though. I can work with underexposed shots much easier.
If you know how to use photoshop a slightly underexposed Raw file is no problem.

(geekspeak follows)

The problem with that is that because of the way most if not all digicams (including SLRs here) work, there're much fewer levels available to capture shadow details.

For example, let's say you have a 12 bit sensor (pretty much all the SLRs) which has a dynamic range of 5 stops. 12 bits=a senstivity to 4096 brigtness levels, and how this is used is as follows, 50% of the levels, or 2048 discreet values, are used for the highest stop of the dynamic range - the right end of the histogram, then for the next stop, 50% of the remaining values are used, giving 1024 etc. This gives for stop 3, 512 levels, stop 4 256, and stop 5 128 levels.

So by underexposing drastically, you are actually losing a vast amount of the possible detail in your image. The ideal situation to maximise detail is try to keep the histrogram towards the right, but avoiding actually blowing the highlights, though you also need to beware that you don't blow one of the red, green, or blue channels, which is a risk unless the camera has an RGB histogram, as the camera might be showing an OK exposure.

See here for more details.

I'd agree with magicbastarder, even if you're not trying to push the histogram

As to the polariser, this is the one filter that it is impossible to replicate in PS. Curves might deepen the sky, but there's other things like getting rid of reflections, increasing saturation (though we are talking about snow here I suppose )

Ideo

..... anyway! i think ill pick up one or two extra SD cards from 7dayshop.com and try to shoot raw and jpeg. I will use a combo of overexposing by 2 stops to get the snow and shooting straight so that i can change the curves in CS2 afterwards. do you think that'd be ok? btw i have no idea how to use curves but sure i can learn when i come back - havent got time at the moment

punchdrunk

lads for all the fancy gear you'd think none of ye had heard of auto bracketing!
set it to shoot three shots,one a stop under, one a stop over
you can always use layers in p.s to compile all three to form the "ideal shot" ,it's a handy safety net and with digital you've nothing to loose

if you can't bracket then i'd rather underexpose than blow the highlights

maybe shooting a test shot in grayscale would help you see a bit easier what the meter is doing?

remember that the angle of the sun is going to really affect the shadows in your shots,so give shooting shots filled with snow at midday a skip,otherwise they'll all look like macro shots of a box of persil!

my dad's been to everest's base camp twice and found that going from extreme cold into a heated room caused condensation in the lens,so try to let the camera adjust to it slowly
he used his old canon AE-1,and shot slide,the blue skys looked great!

as a side note i took shots at an airshow in england last summer and me being impatient got a local chemist one hour photo to process them,the corrections they made ruined the shots!

i was thought in school to meter the blue sky,meter the snow in the foreground and go for a value in the middle,but this was ten years ago and my teacher was REALLY old school!

punchdrunk

scooby_doo_no1 wrote:

..... anyway! i think ill pick up one or two extra SD cards from 7dayshop.com and try to shoot raw and jpeg. I will use a combo of overexposing by 2 stops to get the snow and shooting straight so that i can change the curves in CS2 afterwards. do you think that'd be ok? btw i have no idea how to use curves but sure i can learn when i come back - havent got time at the moment

scooby don't bother with jpeg,raw will give you far more options for post processing if you get your levels a little wrong!

magicbastarder

scooby_doo_no1 wrote:

I will use a combo of overexposing by 2 stops to get the snow and shooting straight so that i can change the curves in CS2 afterwards. do you think that'd be ok?

you could try a grey card too - might be hard to keep it from getting soggy in such conditions, though.

440Hz

DarrenG wrote:

@440Hz -If you are going to purchase filters from waerhouseexpress, I will go halves on postage if your interested. I'm looking for a Cokin filter as well.

Sorry only saw this now... crap!! Id still be up for this if you are?

GristlyEnd

I ended up getting a filter in Gunn's. Don't think there is anything else I need from them at the moment.

JMcL

magicbastarder wrote:

you could try a grey card too - might be hard to keep it from getting soggy in such conditions, though.

Or for a very good suggestion from Bryan Peterson's "Understanding Exposure", buy, or even borrow a grey card, take a meter reading from it, then in the same lighting conditions take a meter reading from your palm. The two will most probably be different, but the difference between them should be constant regardless of the light (anybody that goes in for tanning the palms of your hands, stop reading now!). Therefore if your palm underexposes by 1 stop, alway underexposing by one stop should give the correct exposure, and it's not something you're likely to leave behind!

peter1892

How much do the Cokin filters & holders sell for in the shops here in Ireland? For example, a 52mm holder & ND grad filter?

Rudekid

JMcL wrote:

Or for a very good suggestion from Bryan Peterson's "Understanding Exposure", buy, or even borrow a grey card, take a meter reading from it, then in the same lighting conditions take a meter reading from your palm. The two will most probably be different, but the difference between them should be constant regardless of the light (anybody that goes in for tanning the palms of your hands, stop reading now!). Therefore if your palm underexposes by 1 stop, alway underexposing by one stop should give the correct exposure, and it's not something you're likely to leave behind!

Nice Idea. I haven't heard that one before.
Any ideas for landscape snow photography?

Benster

@ Scooby - Please will you get someone to take your picture as you try to attach the Cokin filter-holder wearing those big gloves you'll undoubtedly need up on Everest.
It's a complete pain to do with bare hands on a cold day here!

JMcL

Rudekid wrote:

Nice Idea. I haven't heard that one before.
Any ideas for landscape snow photography?

What I do with snow, is meter for the snow, using at least center weighted, or partial (on Canon 300D) metering. Spot would be better again, then overexpose by between 2/3 and 2 stops, depending on how bright the ambient light is (more if you're in bright sunlight). I'd recommend using aperture priority for this, though more and more, I'm leaving the camera on manual, as exposure conditions usually don't change drastically from minute to minute, and you won't get caught out by forgetting to add exposure compensation.

Best thing is to rely on your hisotgram, and turn on the warning for clipped pixels. In bright sunlight, you might find that exposure clips very easily, so if it's a very small area, I'd probably let it go, or the darker areas will be underexposed.

At any rate, get the expoure as close as possible, as if you have to do some PS work later on, it'll give you the best jumping off point

houseoffun14

Singh Ray ND grads are super. I use them all the time.

www.photoimagery.net

Diarmuid

Quick question. I have two filters a UV and circ polariser. Any ideas in which order I should put the filters on? I'm guessing it won't make a whole lot of difference to the picture but my thoughts were, if I put the UV on first then I can leave it on all the time, removing the polarising filter easily or put the polarising filter on first so that the UV fitler can (physically) protect the more expensive polarising filter.

Not great reasons but I had to start somewhere. Any recommendations?

JMcL

Diarmuid wrote:

Quick question. I have two filters a UV and circ polariser. Any ideas in which order I should put the filters on? I'm guessing it won't make a whole lot of difference to the picture but my thoughts were, if I put the UV on first then I can leave it on all the time, removing the polarising filter easily or put the polarising filter on first so that the UV fitler can (physically) protect the more expensive polarising filter.

Not great reasons but I had to start somewhere. Any recommendations?

The UV filter is only really useful as protection. Optically on a digital sensor, or even modern film, it will have very little no effect. So the order you put them on shouldn't make a difference, though if using the polariser, I'd personally remove the UV for a couple of reasons. Firstly, stacking pieces of glass in front of your expensive lens won't help with image quality, and secondlyif you're using a wideangle lens, you run the risk of vignetting at the corners of the frame

Diarmuid

Thanks JMcL