Filter advice

[jet_kit]

Hi James,

Yes, the W/A Cokin P holder only has 1 slot instead of 3. The inner slot is for the lens cover and/or the circular filters (Polar, Star etc.). I wouldn't recommend trying to cram a filter into that inner slot, you'll scratch the blazes out of it!
I didn't buy Cokin's holders because if you sit them side by side with the cheap Chinese ones on fleabay you'll struggle to spot the difference. This way I can have a holder mounted permanently on each of my 5 lenses with very little outlay. Saves time and effort.
I just need a solution to the short ND grad now.

Cheers

[Cathus]

Originally Posted by donoreo

X-pro's are 130mm wide, I thought Lee were 100mm? Z-Pro are 100mm.

oops, my bad, I meant the one the same size as 100mm Lee. I got the Lee filter holder & a couple of Cokin filters until Lee get their stocks up again

[donoreo]

Originally Posted by Cathus

oops, my bad, I meant the one the same size as 100mm Lee. I got the Lee filter holder & a couple of Cokin filters until Lee get their stocks up again

You found someone with Cokin's stock? I have not seen them anywhere in stock since last summer.

[James Blonde]

I did toy with the Z-Pro, but the cost of the holder wasn't that much less than the Lee in the grand scheme of things, and I'd heard of supply problems from Cokin. Obviously Lee have no supply problems of their own though... at all.... none...

[Cathus]

I got a Lee holder & Cokin Z-Pro filters from Speedgraphic, this was a few months ago so don't know what their stock is like for Cokin. I check for Lee from time to time.

[Paulson]

Thank you for the advice everybody.

Having now had a chance to experiment a little with the Cokin 'P' series filter set, it seems to be a good starting point.

Couple of questions -

1. Why are there three slots for filters on the plastic holder - is this so you can use more than one if desired, or is there a 'correct' slot to use with a single filtter?

2. having done some background reading on the Photoradar site, specifically the article explaining filters, they suggest that you own an ND, ND grads and a polariser. The cokin kit has ND2, an ND4 and an ND8 grads; is it worthwhile getting a plain ND in addition?

3. For a relative [but keen!] newcomer, which if any polarizer in the p-series range would you suggest? There seem to be a few, and prices vary widely!

Thanks again.

[James Blonde]

a few answers hopefully!

1. They are there to allow you to stack filters, so you can have up to 3 - perhaps a warm-up filter, an ND, and a grad to give you a nice warm long exposure with a balanced sky for example. It does give you that little bit more flexibility! I believe its best to use the inside filter where possible, to reduce light leakage and reflections.

2. It does depend what you want to or expect to take pictures of. If you want to take longer exposures or avoid blowing out bright subjects, an ND will help, and the stronger they are, the longer the exposure. I'm guessing if you've got the grads you're happy you know how you want to use them? The reason these 3 filters are recommended is because they solve problems and allow effects that you can't so easily correct for in Photoshop.

3. My personal opinion is that I wouldn't limit yourself to P-Series polarisers, as I tend to find it is one filter that stays on my camera most! Probably best to get a decent screw-in polariser with a front thread, which you can then add the P-Series adapter / holder on to.

[jet_kit]

I shall attempt to answer your questions.

1. If you check out the Cokin range you'll see that it is huge and offers many opportunities to double-up a couple of filters. If you also use a Polar or Star filter, these are round and fit in the rear-most slot, but, protrude into the next slot making it unusable. So you could have a polar, a centre spot and a grad all at once.

2. Depends what you're planning on doing. I find the ND Grads are the most used filters in my collection. I don't think I've ever used my ND8, but I would definitely use a Big Stopper - if I had one.

3. Like everything in life, you gets what you pays for. Nowhere is this more true than Circular Polarising Filters. Here you need to ask yourself the same question, what are you going to do with it? If it's just to make the sky a bit punchier, you will probably get away one of the cheaper ones. However, if you want to do some serious reflection control the final image could suffer from a cheap CPL. Maybe the best advice is spend as much as you can afford. BTW, make sure you get a CPL and not one of the Polarcolor range or Linear Polarizer, these are different animals all together.

[Paulson]

Many thanks James and Chris.

Very useful. As far as the nd grads go - I understand the concept of what they do, and assume that the only real difference in use is the length of exposure/brightness of the sky you are taking an exposure of, i.e. darker grad for longer/brighter?

have I got it right?

[jet_kit]

Not exactly.
One of the problems with digital is that the sensors do not have the dynamic range that we used get with film. So, when you take a nice landscape the chances are that you either burn out the sky or lose some detail in the shadows (known as clipping). Shadow detail is not so bad, you can often tease this out, but burnt highlights are a lost cause, there's nothing there to rescue. For this reason we used ND grads and what these do is allow you to expose for the shadows while the ND holds back the highlights in the sky. There are a number of ND grad combinations; ND2, 4 & 8, then Light, Medium, Soft, Full etc. which relates to the coarseness of the transition from clear to ND. Get this under your belt and you can start having fun with the coloured grads, Red, Tobacco, Green etc.
I warn you, this is a slippery slope. Once you get into these filter systems you will be forever searching for the next one and you'll need a whole new camera bag just to carry them!