How to determine which neutral density graduated filter to use?

4 years 6 months ago #663042 by Adam Cuffin
When you have a large difference in the sky and foreground light.  How are you determining what ND graduated filter to use?  

To be honest, I've been just tossing them on and have no idea if I'm close or not.  


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4 years 6 months ago #663429 by Ozzie_Traveller
G'day Adam

Some things in life you just have to experiment with ... or to use a classic phrase "just suck it and see". The use of a grad -and- the intensity of the grad is entirely subjective on your part.

When I use a grad - not all that often - then I mostly just use the regular Cokin grads. I have doubled-up occasionally, to find that 2-grads become too severe, so I go back to a single grad.

It comes back to you and what you wish to achieve creatively
Hope this helps

Phil from the great land Downunder
www.flickr.com/photos/ozzie_traveller/sets/

Phil from the great land Downunder
www.flickr.com/photos/ozzie_traveller/sets/

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4 years 6 months ago #663441 by selena18
Observe well, if the sky is three stops darker than the foreground then you need to use three stop graduated neutral density filter to even out the difference between the two. I think 0.6 ND Grad will work for your scene.


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4 years 6 months ago #663447 by Nikon Shooter
A light meter could be of great help for sure when using a hard
or soft edge split neutral-density filter

Phil is right, experimenting is the next best thing to the meter.

Light is free… capturing it is not!
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4 years 6 months ago #663490 by MYoung

Nikon Shooter wrote: A light meter could be of great help for sure when using a hard
or soft edge split neutral-density filter

Phil is right, experimenting is the next best thing to the meter.



Move your camera to spot metering and use the cameras built in meter.  


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