Hi tech filters

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Tony
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Sorry to be so dumb, what is the difference between Hard edge and soft edge filters? and what situations would you use either?

Thanks in advance for any help and advice
 
It's so you don't cut your fingers...

Either that, or it describes the transition from clear to dark, though one manufacturer's hard/soft is not the same as everyone elses. HiTech's hard cut is pretty hard!

Edit: the hardness of the transition also varies a lot with focal length (grads are virtually invisible on longer lenses) and to a lesser extent with f/number, and even how far the filter is held in front of the lens.
 
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Hard filters are best for scenes with rapid and non-curved transition between bright and dark areas. The best example is proabably a seascape sunset. Soft filters add some more tolerance for protroding objects between the different phases, or rather work better with smoother graduation of the luminosity. May work better in cities, etc... Ideally you should have both. 0.9 is the most useful, but 0.6 (more for hard) and 1.2 (soft?) are good. 0.3 is too weak in most cases.

Don't forget Lightroom has a similar functionality to finish the adjusments as required - particularly doing Reverse ND grads.
 
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