graduated nd filters

T

translumination

Active member
When I do wide shots during daylight that includes sky or water they invariably blow out if I try to get the correct exposure for my subject in the foreground. I wonder if any of you guys use a graduated nd filters in a mattebox to prevent this from occuring? I was thinking of getting nd's with different strenghts and rotating it around in the mattebox to bring down the brightness of the offending part of the scene. Anyone with experience of this?
 
Re: graduated nd filters

get an ULTRA POLARIZER.    it will dramitically reduce glare from water , and clouds and sky  pending your angle  to the scource of light outside (almost always the sun). using a good polarizer you should be able to handle pretty harshly contrasted areas in your shots if you learn to take a good angle. polarizers can do alot to help bring overexposed glaring skies, and water glare into the cameras dynamic range.

reagrding the graduated ND, IMHO your scene would look sort of wierd with one darker side or edge in different places  when you swith angles or shots in the sort of environtment your describing..  its probably not a good idea. IMHO its generally  better to take a different angle, or try to frame it differently to block the bad elements out, or reduce their effects.
 
Re: graduated nd filters

DOH! ..after reading barry's post i had to stop and think.. OH!  do you mean that your going to use the graduated ND to grad ou the sky straight up, and the water straight down? sure :P   .. just as barry said.. thats what their for. for some reason i read where you said you would be "rotating it around in the mattebox", and was envisioning  you rotating a grad ND filter to whatever angle the glare was at in the shot.. so youd have the grad at 45 degress.. and then rotate  it to grad out a light in annother shot at 95 degrees and such.... :P    lol  anyway a polarizer and grad NDs would wokr great as long as your using them in the traditional manner...the polarizer will be ok at ANY angle.. but you dont want to just rotate a grad nd to whatever angle some glare happens to be at.. :P
 
Re: graduated nd filters

There's this cool Japanese Film, Tokyo Drifter, where the director uses Grad ND's to draw over the screen, like we see today in Anime It didn't have any Logic, sometimes we could just see a Grad Line in diagonal, or two horizontal lines highlighting the characters Eyes from the face. I guess it really looked cool in the 60's.
 
Re: graduated nd filters

Yeah I want the matte box just for the use of filters. I plan to use a polarizer and the graduated nd together. I like the pattern of clouds and water in my shots.

I am going to get one where the nd part is three quarters of the way down the filter and the rest clear. This way I can adjust the position of the filter up and down in the mattebox so that the nd part can cover as much or little of the scene as I desire. I hope the bottom edge of the filter does not show up on the shot. Has anyone found this to be a problem?

I tested my camera today and found the difference between forested mountain and sky to be an astounding 5 to 6 stops.
My main concern is the getting the transition zone right especially if the subject stands at the intersection of sky and ground in a close up. I wonder if the graduations could be gradual enough not to cause a sharp transition. I need to find a place that will allow me to try their filters- abit difficult here in Sydney.
 
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