One of the most boring and time consuming tasks that comes with any serious amount of photography seems to be dealing with the large amount of files (and the amount of disc space that they take up). I try to keep two backups of all my images - at the moment I’m finally archiving them all to DVD, chronologically, but I’m also taking the opportunity to get rid of some rubbish and duplicates.
Often I’ll take a couple of shots of something and then notice a distraction in the frame, or I’ll increase the exposure time to get a little more light into a scene. At about 15MB a time all these extra shots add up and despite going against the “never delete your raws” mantra, hanging on to all these extra versions doesn’t really serve any great purpose, other than helping Western Digital stay in business.
The above image is from January 2010 (I’m about 6 months behind with my tidy up at the moment and my progress is constantly hampered by the arrival of new images which I’ll briefly scan for favourites and then ignore for a few months) and was taken on a frosty morning out with John Houghton
This was one of the last shots that I took with my Canon 450D and despite having been back since with my other camera, this was my favourite sunrise shot from this location - mainly due to the good fortune of the cloud picking up the pink glow of the rising sun, which is then also reflected in the ice.
Technical info: ISO100, f/16, 11mm, 1.3s, Cokin ND4 soft grad
Purchase print at RedBubble
Posted in landscape, sunrises.
Tagged with canon 450d, clouds, cokin, filter, sunrise.
Purchase print at RedBubble | imagekind
It was about an hour before sunset when we arrived at this location, and the light had just taken on the golden hue we had hoped for. After a bit of wandering around trying to find somewhere to make the most of the light I settled on a nicely constructed platform that was probably intended for fishing and took a couple of shots of the scene above. It was quite pleasant, but a bit bright and there was no interesting foreground to speak of so, as I had a bit of time before sunset, I thought I’d give the Cokin P151 - Gradual Fog 2 filter a try.
I popped the camera into Live View mode and slid the fog filter into the P-Series holder. The fog filter is graduated - foggy at the top and clear and the bottom, fading gently between the two states - and using Live View enabled me to see accurately where the effect was going to begin. If the effect started too low or too high in the picture it wouldn’t look natural.
This was the shot as it came out of the camera…
I liked the effect but found it a little too bright and unrealistic so I just made some minor curve adjustments to improve the overall balance.
Posted in filters, landscape, sunsets, water.
Tagged with cokin, filter, fog, print, sunset.
There, I’ve said it. It’s probably incredibly unfashionable in this age of digital - in fact I often see people on forums etc discussing selling their grad filters because they have abandoned them in favour of exposure blending - but they are currently my preferred method of attempting to balance exposures.
An ND (Neutral Density) grad (Graduated) filter is basically just a piece of plastic that is dark at one end and clear at the other - the dark part of the filter is positioned over the lighter portion of the scene, reducing the light variation (dynamic range) of the scene so that it can be captured without any loss of detail.
Drawbacks
As with other methods used to make your camera faithfully reproduce a scene with a wider dynamic range than it is capable of, ND grads certainly have their drawbacks:-
- The line between the clear and dark parts of the filter is a straight one (albeit with a slight fade/graduation to make it less noticeable). Rarely will a scene have a simple, straight line transition between dark and light so you end up having to compromise and perhaps hide the transition somewhere you hope the viewer won’t notice it
- Getting the gradient to start in the correct place takes a bit of practice - if it starts too low some of the foreground with appear slightly darker - if it starts too late the brightness of the sky might appear uneven.
- Like all lenses and filters they need to be kept clean - and as I swap them around between filter holders I have a tendency to drop them
With so many negative points, why use them?
Other methods of exposure balancing (such as exposure blending or HDR) require multiple exposures of the same scene, which realistically means using a tripod. I have a tripod, and I use it a lot, but I don’t always carry it - when I’m out with the family it’s an unnecessary burden - and sometimes I make the decision not to use it at all as constantly relying on it can lead to a lack of invention. A set of grads takes up very little room in my camera bag.
Processing time. Other techniques may only take a matter of minutes when you are skilled at them but if I’m taking an afternoon’s worth of casual shots I want them all to look their best with minimal editing.
An Example
These two shots, taken at sunset in Bradgate Park show the subtle but pleasing effect of using the Cokin P121M (ND4) grad. The first shot was taken without the filter. As you can see, the foreground is quite dark.
Technical info: ISO100, 18mm, f/22, 0.5s
The second shot (below), with the filter in place produces a much more even result.
Technical info: ISO100, 18mm, f/22, 0.6s
No further processing has been done to either image. As you can see from the technical info, the second shot was exposed for slightly longer (0.1s) which allowed more light from the foreground to be picked up by the camera sensor, resulting in a more even looking photograph.
Posted in filters, tutorials.
Tagged with cokin, filter, gradient, kood, nd grad, neutral density.
With Cropston Reservoir being the location of my first sunset shot, it seems fitting that it was also the first place I sat with my camera and waited for the sun to rise.
I’m not really very good at getting up in the morning, but with the sun rising a little later now (7:22am on the morning this was taken) I figured now was as good a time as any, before Autumn turns into Winter and it becomes too cold to use the camera without gloves.
I took a few shots before this one, with just the ND4 grad on, but the foreground was too dark - I wanted the sunlight to be casting a night glow on the boat. I popped to my bag to get the rest of my filters but unfortunately I’d left my filter wallet open and they were all covered in condensation. I had a frantic couple of minutes trying to get the ND8 grad dry and smear free before the run rose too high in the sky.
Purchase print at RedBubble | imagekind
Technical info : Sigma 18-200 lens at 21mm, 1/20s, f11.0, ISO100, ND4 and ND8 grads
Posted in sunrises, water.
Tagged with boat, cokin, cokin nd8 grad, cropston, filter, leciestershire, print, reservoir, sunrises, water.
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