Filters and grads

woody12

woody12

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paul
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Hi, I'm off to my annual holiday to Weymouth next month and looking to capture some nice sunset sunrise landscapes. What bothers and confuses me is soft/hard grads which i have none. I have tenstop, polariser with various lens. What grad is best, and do i need all strengths? Sounds silly but I want to improve and just need the best equipment for the job. Thanks for any help
 
Try searching the web where you will find hundreds of articles on which type of grad to choose. The first choice will be between hard and soft grads and this refers to the transition of the graduation. Hard grads have a much harsher transition and work well for subjects which have a fairly straight line dic=vision between light and dark with nothing sticking up like a building or mountain. So hard would be ideal for a sunset/sunrise seascape where the transition is basically the horizon. Soft grads have a more gentle transition and work better where the division is not a straight line.

One stop grads do very little so if I was only going to buy one it would be a two stop and the soft edged one would be more versatile.

With modern sensors lots of photographers might argue that grads are no longer needed especially if you take multiple exposures and blend them in Photoshop. I am amazed at the dynamic range of the Sony A7R and find that as long as the highlights are not totally blown(overexposed) then it is amazing how much you can pull out of the shadows thus negating the need for grads in many circumstances.
 
As Adrian says, the choice of soft or hard is dependent on subject. Soft for mountains, cityscapes etc and hard for seascapes with a defined horizon. My most used grad is by far a 3 stop (0.9) soft.

In terms of square or round filters, avoid the round ones - you'll be stuck with the transition in the middle of the image. A set of square grads and holder will allow you to move the filter to suit the scene.
 
It'd echo Adrian and James' comments... a good start would probably be a 0.9 and a 0.6 - one as a hard and one as a soft. My personal choice would be the 0.9 as the hard but it might depend on what you see yourself shooting more of.
 
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If you're using a crop sensor camera I'd just go with Hard Grads... you'll only ever see anything of the graduation line at extreme wide angle, 95% of the time you'll see little to no difference between soft & hard grads. If you're using full frame you'll need both.. as already mentioned above 0.6 & 0.9 are a good choice.. I find a reverse ND grad useful sometimes for sunsets too

Simon
 
Lee or hitech 100mm system is most popular system, wide angle lens rings for the holder is recommended as it helps avoid vignettes. I would go for a 0.6 & 0.9 hard grads and a 0.9 soft grad, these should cover most situations.
 
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