Looking at going out a few days next week up the lakes, breacon beacons, snowndon, and looking to take some long exposure stuff, waterfalls ect, just would like to know what type of nd filters/ grads to take. Ive never ventured into this before so will be a first for me, will be going out tomorrow shopping for whay i need, i'll be using a tamron 17-50mm 2.8 on a 400d, any hely help would be very helpful......
Wow - 23 minutes with no reply and it warrants a bump!
If you want to freeze motion stick on some NDs, probably ND 3 at least if you're shooting during daylight.
If you want to balance sky and land so as not to blow highlights/crush lowlights then you'll need grads and probably several different strengths
I'd recommend going to for a filter set and slot ins as these actually elt you alter the level of the NS grad, on a screw in all you can do is rotate it rather than move it vertically
Some on here will swear by the Lee or Singh filters but I've not found many faults with Cokin so far, though they're hard to keep dust and scratch free.
FYI it's neutral density btw. I think you'll find the GND of more use than the ND. I have both and don't often use the latter.
If you are going in the daytime, and you want to slow your shutter speeds down then you will need an ND filter. How many stops will depend on the day really.
For waterfalls you will want to shoot between 1/8 and a few seconds depending on the speed of the water and the effect you want.
You probably don't want to be stopping down much beyond F11 due to diffraction issues loosing some sharpness so I think you will need at least a 3 stop ND filter. More if you will be there on a sunny day.
With regard to grads - unless you are planning on doing sunrise/sunset then a one stop and 2 stop grad should be enough. I only use my 3 stop (and sometimes stacking) when the sun is below the horizon.
At the end of the day it will all be down to your budget, ND and ND Grad filters will be something that you will probably only want to buy once.
As a minimum you should look at an ND Grad set and probably a 0.9 ND.
Once you know what you are happy to spend you will know what manufacturer you can go for, your main choices are Cokin P, Cokin Z, Lee and Hi-tech. Dont forget that you will want a Circular Polarizer (CPL) too and preferably one that will fit in your filter holder as using a screw fit CPL and a filter holder is difficult if possible at all.
I used to have Cokin P but recently swithed to Lee - ND Grad soft set, Pro-Glass 0.9 ND, Holder, 2x 77mm wide angle adaptor rings, 105mm ring for the front of the holder and a 105mm CPL. What a difference, there is just no comparison.
If this is the sort of thing you are looking to do than the kit I have listed above should be all you will want, whichever manufacturer you chose.
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