Filters

Ballyman

Hi

I have a question about filters. At present I do not have any but I think I need to get one or two. I was going to get an ND graduated filter, A 3 Stop ND filter and a Circular Polarizing one.

I take a lot of pics during the day and recently the cloudy skies have just been coming out as pure bright white in the background whenever I can expose correctly whatever it is I am photographing. It ruins the photos and no matter what I do in LR I cannot get the sky to darken without destroying the rest of the photo.
WHen driving in the car, sometimes I see a good scene and then park and get the camer out. Only then do I remove my sunglasses and realise that I am blinded by the glare off the sky and in fact the scene is now crap because of this!! Would a polarizer filter help here? What I mean is, is a polarizer a bit like puttoing sunglasses on the lens?

I'm presuming a graduated filter would be ideal for landscape type shots where there is a defined land and sky portion of the photo and the three stop filter will help show movement when I need a really slow shutter speed in not so low light.

Have ai got this right or am I all wrong here? I don't want to waste the money on them if they're not going to help me out a little. I'm not looking for miracles obviously, just a little help when needed!!

padi89

You've got it pretty much correct and for what improvements you are looking to make filters would be a wise investment and used correctly will sort out your issues.I know what you mean by the sunglasses though , ive got a great pair of Maui Jims and the polarization is excellent as much on overcast as brighter days, you see a great scene pull over lift up the glasses and it looks crap .A polarizing lens will definitely pull you closer to what you see through your sunglasses.
ND's will give you the ability to shoot longer exposures in brighter conditions and you can also use it with a polarizing filter to give you even more stops.A graduated will sort out your foreground sky exposure issues but it does take a bit of experimenting to get it right.

Ballyman

Excellent. I must get ordering then! :>

CabanSail

What sort of Camera are you using?

I would reccomend a CPL for sure.

The ND Grads work when you are set up on a Tripod have a longer exposure. They are held in front of the lens.

When you do your RAW processing you may well find that the detail is still in the highlights.

snellers

If in a rush and handholding It is usually preferable to under expose 'the ground' a bit to ensure the sky doesn't blow.......I find easier recovering the darker areas PP than highights when using DSLR

if on tripod you can of course take two or more pics of the same shot with different exposures and combine them

Ballyman

Can the shots be combined in LightRoom or is it just in PS?

I've started to do that recently, taking two shots - One of the sky correctly exposed and the other of the foreground correctly exposed. Haven't figured out how to combine them yet though!

CabanSail

Lightroom is a single layer editor only. So no.

The advice given by Guy Gowan recently was to expose for Shadows & then pull the highlights back in PP as it avoids noise.

Saggitarius

Ballyman wrote: »

Can the shots be combined in LightRoom or is it just in PS?

I've started to do that recently, taking two shots - One of the sky correctly exposed and the other of the foreground correctly exposed. Haven't figured out how to combine them yet though!

Actually you never be do a perfect picture 'cos the dinamic range of the photomachines picture process electronics are much more less then the human eyes! Also every case -if we talk about earth with some trees for example- or the sky be overexposed and the trees are perfect or the sky be perfect with underexposed trees.
From here you can choice what kind of filter fit for you.

nilhg

Ballyman wrote: »

Can the shots be combined in LightRoom or is it just in PS?

I've started to do that recently, taking two shots - One of the sky correctly exposed and the other of the foreground correctly exposed. Haven't figured out how to combine them yet though!

CabanSail wrote: »

Lightroom is a single layer editor only. So no.

The advice given by Guy Gowan recently was to expose for Shadows & then pull the highlights back in PP as it avoids noise.

Actually, while Cabansail is right about Lightroom being a single layer editor, he forgot that it has support (limited for the moment) for plugins, including LR/Enfuse, which does pretty much what Ballyman wants.

jackdaw

padi89 wrote: »

You've got it pretty much correct and for what improvements you are looking to make filters would be a wise investment and used correctly will sort out your issues.I know what you mean by the sunglasses though , ive got a great pair of Maui Jims and the polarization is excellent as much on overcast as brighter days, you see a great scene pull over lift up the glasses and it looks crap .A polarizing lens will definitely pull you closer to what you see through your sunglasses.
ND's will give you the ability to shoot longer exposures in brighter conditions and you can also use it with a polarizing filter to give you even more stops.A graduated will sort out your foreground sky exposure issues but it does take a bit of experimenting to get it right.

Thanks ... Whats a good place to order a ND and Polarising filter ?
7dayshop.com ? I have been looking for a ND 110 (reduces light by 10 stops!!)
can't find it anywhere here in Barcelona, and there are good stores here...

Climate Expert

I've thought about this problem a fair bit since I've started taking shots 2 years back.

Why not give cameras a greater dynamic range. 32bit iwht larger well capacity. I'm sure there are some technical issues.
What about making them log sensitive to light through the CCD electronics. Or maybe being able to dynamically adjust the camera gain for selected portions of the chip which would have the same effect as a graduated filter.

Paulw

jackdaw wrote: »

Thanks ... Whats a good place to order a ND and Polarising filter ?
7dayshop.com ? I have been looking for a ND 110 (reduces light by 10 stops!!)
can't find it anywhere here in Barcelona, and there are good stores here...

7dayshops is decent for filters. Mymemory also have some, and warehouseexpress too.

I got a ND110 from warehouseexpress last week. Haven't had a chance to try it out yet though.