ND grad question

Darthchaffinch

Darthchaffinch

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My first (3 stop) nd grad filter is on its way but I'm not 100% sure how to use it... Do I just meter the sky and pull back the shutter speed 3 stops under that?? Thanks!
 
Darthchaffinch said:
My first (3 stop) nd grad filter is on its way but I'm not 100% sure how to use it... Do I just meter the sky and pull back the shutter speed 3 stops under that?? Thanks!
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No, meter the foreground, lock the exposure and slide the filter in. That's the way I do it anyhow. You don't want any of the sky metered when you do it, so use spot metering or fill the entire frame with the foreground.
Obviously only having a 3 stop filter might mean the sky is underexposed compared to the foreground, in which case you might need to over expose the foreground slightly to compensate.
 
Technically you should meter for the sky (note it down), then meter for the foreground (note it down), work out the difference between the two to choose which filter you use (2/3 stop etc), then expose for the foreground because the ND grad has dimmed the sky by however many stops to match the foreground.

Although, like you I only have one ND grad, so just meter for the foreground and hope for the best.
 
thanks both! So ideally you'd need a set of filters, that you would use in a situation where you had 2, 3, 4 etc stops difference between sky and foreground?
 
Ideally, but I haven't got round to buying the others yet, see how you get on with what you already have. It is easier to correct a 1 stop difference in PP.
 
Imagine you were shooting a landscape that already has a dark moody sky. How would you meter that? Just point the camera at the scene and meter as normal, then adjust to taste if necessary off the LCD/histogram/blinkies. The camera will not read things any differently just because there's a grad attached.

Metering sky and foregound separately can be useful in deciding what strength of grad to use. But if you have a set of different values, you will quickly learn by experience which one to use.

You also need to check and adjust things anyway, because the meter reading will not help with the choice of soft or hard cut, and both are significantly varied by focal length, and also f/number to a lesser degree.
 
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