I’ve kept my word, here’s an upload about camera filters.
I use 100mm filters, that is 90% of my filters are from the Lee filter system that include neutral density grads/reverse grads/coloured grads/soft filters/polariser/colour correction filters the rest of my collection are grad filters of dubious construction they’re so bad they’re good (I’ll explain this better in a bit) and some neutral density filters and a polariser from Format Filters.
Below, this image created first, the image above created an hour after, just before sunrise. The first image (1) was created with a 35mm shift lens at f11 notice I used a rain cape, it started drizzling) with an exposure time of 30 sec, ISO 160. The second (4) image (cape off, stopped raining) was created with a 45mm PCE lens at f 14, with an exposure time of 68 sec and an ISO of 50. The common thing between both images are the filters I’ve used which were a 6 stop neutral ND filter (5) and a Lee 0.6 medium hard grad (6). As you can see in (2) both filters are placed as close to the lens as possible, this is a 3 slot filter holder and (3) my filter bag which if it’s not windy I clip it to my tripod for easy access. I have over the years bought filters of dubious origin, they are usually so cheap (I can’t resist a bargin) I take a chance. What I usually get is a filter that’s destined for the draw of kit that never see’s the light of day again, but every now and again I obtain a ND grad with such a horrendous colour cast it looks fantastic (see here, in the bottom image you’ll see the sky ended up with a purple cast from the supposed neutral ND graduate filter, in my opinion £10 well spent, remember to shoot with a more neutral version just in case the client dosen’t like the “different” approach).
In the days of film capture, to create this type of drama in an image you would have to filter a bit more heavy when capturing on transparency film or you could capture on colour negative and produce a hand print. That latter way of working is close to how I use digital capture, I try to use filters to constrict the tonal brightness of a scene so I don’t lose any detail in the highlights or shadows. Yes I know that can be achieved by using HDR and blending multiple images together, but I’d rather try and capture the image in as least amount of shots as possible, also using strong ND filters I’m compressing a passage of time into one image which is impossible for the naked eye to see, amazing really, that’s the power of photography!
Seeya soon mb
