Beginner Filters

[Roy1212]

i recently bought Gradient filters but watching YouTube I've noticed photographers not putting it in the ring just holding the filter in front of the lens?Is this normal practice?

 

[Kodiak Qc]

•
This is most likely a way out!

The filter holder may have been lost, damages or forgotten but the
shot is there and it's not waiting…

Using a GF, if the camera is on tripod, it will make no problem to hold
(even move) the filter in front of the lens as it is GF!

 

[jpgreenwood]

On a similar subject, the cheap filter sets you see on ebay for less than a tenner for 3 ND Grad filters...how good are these for an amateur just starting out with a Nikon D3200 and kit lens?

 

[Teflon-Mike]

watching YouTube I've noticed photographers not putting it in the ring just holding the filter in front of the lens?Is this normal practice?

Not really.
Think about taking a photo through a window... stand three feet from the glass, and any light behind you is likely to give you a reflection in your picture, yeah?
The 'advantage' of screw-on type filters is that the filter 'ring' forms a light tight seal between the lens and the filter, so like a hood, can control such 'flare'.
Cokin 'type' square slot filters, were always criticized for being very 'poor' in this, the gaps between the slots not helping control flare or even internal reflections.
Hand-Holding, then is even 'worse' practice for 'keeping it clean'.
HOWEVER.. all down to compromises at the end of the day, and 'system' filters offer a few advantages, significantly cost. Because a) they tend to be plastic, which is cheaper than glass; b) you can use the same filter on different sized lenses without having to buy them 'over-size' and faff with step-down rings. and there are 'some' reasons that hand-holding may be a worthwhile thing to do 'in' the compromise.
Not something I do as a matter of 'course' but I have done it... in fact, to make some grimace, I have used a pair of graduated sun-glasses as a 'grad' in front of a compact on rather a lot of occasions! One of the 'few' more legitimate reasons for not using a holder, when you cant 'physically' fit one to the camera!
Other reasons may be that with a 'Big-Stoppa' ND filter for turning pretty water-falls to milky 'mush', at much more than 4 or 5 stops 'down' you cant see blugger all through the view-finder to compose the shot, so you may compose and set without the filter, then hand-hold so you don't change the framing when you take the picture.
Similar reasoning may apply if you are taking multiple exposures for later manipulation, so as to avoid risk of changing the framing you need to later 'index' in over-lays. I was recently using an 'antique' technique known as 'Trichrome', taking three individual photographs, on 'mono-chrome' black & white film, one through each of a red, a green and a blue filter, which can then be over-laid, conveniently more easily in 'digital-dark-room' than a 'wet' one, as the individual 'colour separations' to make a colour photo.. it gives some interesting colour shift and 'fringing' effects, if you are interested. But Hand-Held the filters, there, to avoid any risk of shifting the framing between pictures (though I still had to touch the camera to wind on the film!). But could be equally valid if shooting for HDR or focus stacking type manipulations.
GENERALLY though, its not accepted 'best-practice'

On a similar subject, the cheap filter sets you see on ebay for less than a tenner for 3 ND Grad filters...how good are these for an amateur just starting out with a Nikon D3200 and kit lens?

You got to start some-where!
I have a whole box full of filters I built up over the years shooting film... a lot of them are these days,,made 'redundant' by in camera 'colour balance' adjustment; I don't need an FL filter to correct for the colour cast of fluorescent tube lights, or a blue cooling filter for tungsten lamps, on 'Day-Light' balanced slide-film! (except when I'm still shooting film, of course ;-) )
The filters that are still 'useful' in the digital age, though are Circular-Polariser, which has the effect of reducing reflections, particularly off the surface of water or shiny surfaces like car body-work, and saturating colours, and grey-grads that can be used to 'balance' areas of high contrast in, typically, a landscape, such as holding back 'bright sky' against a darker foreground, which effecting the scene pre-capture, before the light gets to the sensor, you cant 'replicate' post-process in digital dark-room. Big-Stoppa ND's? sort of likewise.. but the cliches they tend to get used to produce tend to make me grimace!

Personally, I'd prioritize a good quality 'screw-on' CPL before anything, though tad more than a tenner each. And in fact, to avoid faffing with step-down rings, I have one for each lens, or at least the 'kit' 18-55 and the 55-300 zoom for my D3200. An Ultra-Wide-Angle is on 'order' for this year's 'large capitol-investment', but the polarizing effect changes with angle of incidence, so when your lenses angle of view is tending close or much over 90 Degrees, the polarizing effect can start to create 'contrast' shifts as it filters some parts of the scene more than others, so tend to be less helpful on such lenses.

As for the Grey-Grads? How useful they are likely to be will depend on how often you can make use of one. For landscapes, they can be damn 'handy', if used carefully, and possibly more so on digital, than film, which tends to 'flatten' extremes of contrast a bit more, due to the 'response-curve' of the chemicals to light, rather than 'accentuate' them as digital does (pandering to this modern obsession with 'sharpness' perhaps?)

As said, the square system filters have always been a 'compromise', mostly for cost, but used with a bit of care, remembering they are plastic and scratch easily, so handle with care! They can be 'effective', (like a pair of sun-glasses held in-front of a compact!) and if they teach and or inspire you, you can 'upgrade' later.. but crikey £10? that was one 36 exposure roll of film and over-the-counter develop & print, or a night on the lash, before electric picture makers!!!

So, for £10, and some possibly 'duff' digital shots you can 'double up' with and without filter, what you got to loose?

 

[HoppyUK]

i recently bought Gradient filters but watching YouTube I've noticed photographers not putting it in the ring just holding the filter in front of the lens?Is this normal practice?

Not normal practise, but can be a handy workaround. When you don't have the right ring to fit a particular lens, or don't have a wide-angle adapter for a very wide lens.

Literally hand-holding a filter in front can be very hit and miss as far as accurate positioning goes (with a grad say), and pressing the filter actually against the lens is very likely to result in camera movement spoiling the result. In which case, a few blobs of BluTack does an excellent job

 

[jpgreenwood]

Thanks TM. These are the screw on type circular filter set. Orange, Blue and Grey ND grads for about £9.00. They are glass on a 52mm swivel metal ring. I don't expect much but for learning on and trialing different effects, I would like to think they would teach me quite a bit.
One of the main things I struggle with is processing and editing. I always seem to get skies blown out or over exposed. I know the technique is to take 2 photos, one exposed for land and the other for sky. However, I don't know how to put these together to get the right shot so that is my focus for the next few weeks.