What filters do you consider essential?

[KETCH ROSSi]

I was talking about ND grads, not regular ND's. I try to carry up to an ND1.8 if possible.

I use the regular ND.30 all the time actually but often indoors when I want to control depth of field, reduce it by a stop.

Roger that David, now we are on the same page... ;)


Even so I do have also the .9 and 1.2 of both the Vertical and the Landscape Soft Graduate ND's, as I tend to find myself in situations were I have super bright clouded Sky and a much dark City scape or Mountain range and such, so they do at times become very handy, even with HDRX.

[Phil Holland]

When u say u use a 1/2 CTB u are using it on the actual light fixtures right? I would essentially get the same result with an 81c filter in front of my lens right?

I said up to a 1/2 CTB :) You can do it on the lights or you can do it in front of the lens, Schneider makes glass filters like this.

Once you get up to 3 or more lights though you are applying a filter to each light. In those cases I prefer to put a filter in front of the lens. Also when dealing with mixed sources I've found certain pros and cons. If I was balancing a daylight source like a window or skylight and adding tungsten fill, that would certainly be a situation to add filtration to the light source. If I'm shooting an interior with several on site lamps and coming in with tungsten key light and maybe a fill, I often go with the glass filter. Just depends on what needs to be done and how you want to do it.

[Brian F Kobylarz]

Do not stack IRND's.

The IRND's - or any IR filter should be the outermost filter from the lens.
The IR filters are reflective - if placed in the optical path behind another filter, some of the light will bounce back to the rear surface of the filter in front of it.
It goes without saying, make sure the reflective surface is facing out.

Also, if you stack normal ND's behind an IRND, make sure they are from same filter manufacturer - the IRND's do introduce a color shift - mixing them up can have a detrimental result on your images.

[David Mullen ASC]

I was shooting in Times Square in NYC one night and got an f/5.6 at 500 ASA, it was so bright out there, so I used an ND.30 to bring it down to an f/4.0. Same goes for shooting in a supermarket or some other bright interior location, I sometimes use ND filters so that I don't get too much depth of field. Sometimes what I do is use the ND.30 on the wider shots and then in telephoto close-ups, pull the ND and stop down to regain some depth of field to make focus-pulling easier. Once you get beyond 150mm or so, a background goes soft in a close-up even if stopped down quite a bit, so there isn't much reason to shoot wide-open unless for exposure reasons, it already looks shallow-focus anyway if you want that look.

[David Mullen ASC]

Roger that David, now we are on the same page... ;)


Even so I do have also the .9 and 1.2 of both the Vertical and the Landscape Soft Graduate ND's, as I tend to find myself in situations were I have super bright clouded Sky and a much dark City scape or Mountain range and such, so they do at times become very handy, even with HDRX.

Sure, an ND.90 grad is occasionally useful, even an ND1.2 grad, but if I were aiming for a minimal filter package, I'd get the ND.60 grad since that's the most commonly-used strength.

[Danai Chutinaton]

I said up to a 1/2 CTB :) You can do it on the lights or you can do it in front of the lens, Schneider makes glass filters like this.

Once you get up to 3 or more lights though you are applying a filter to each light. In those cases I prefer to put a filter in front of the lens. Also when dealing with mixed sources I've found certain pros and cons. If I was balancing a daylight source like a window or skylight and adding tungsten fill, that would certainly be a situation to add filtration to the light source. If I'm shooting an interior with several on site lamps and coming in with tungsten key light and maybe a fill, I often go with the glass filter. Just depends on what needs to be done and how you want to do it.

Thanks Phil for pointing me towards the Schneider CTB filters. Will have to get some. If I were going to get only one density would the 1/4 CTB be the one to get?

[KETCH ROSSi]

Sure, an ND.90 grad is occasionally useful, even an ND1.2 grad, but if I were aiming for a minimal filter package, I'd get the ND.60 grad since that's the most commonly-used strength.

Correct, its just that I like to be prepared for all things, as the only one or two times I wasn't I greatly paid the price and lost the shot, for this I always suggest to have all that you reasonably can to insure you are prepared to take your shot under even some of the most difficult conditions... ;)

[Brant Hadfield]

I am also preparing to purchase ND filters (for Scarlet). Can we say that there is a consensus as to which make/model of combo IRND/Hot Mirror or HMND combo is best for the MX sensor? What would it be? Is the one-piece glass approach the one which makes the most sense, or is there an intelligent combination of HMND and plain old straight ND, such as a HMND 1.2, plus a straight ND.6 (=1.8)? Or is that much glass stacked together going to degrade the image from one piece of HMND 1.8?

Also, is a UV filter ever necessary with an HMND?

[Michael Ou]

Great information here! I'm curious as to whether HDRx can be used in a pinch to mitigate the need for carrying a full set of ND's. I'm planning on running some barebones tests, soon. But as of yet do not own a full set of quality ND's, just a few cheap ones. I'm not asking whether or not HDRx will "replace" the need for ND's, just if I get caught without the right intensity, can HDRx compensate?

[David Mullen ASC]

HDRx may make an extremely overexposed shot a bit more savable in post but I certainly would not use it as a substitute for an ND filter. Either you are carrying ND filters or you aren't, so as long as you have an ND.90 at the heaviest, you'd be able to get proper exposure even in full frontal hard sunlight given the Sunny 16 rule of photography (i.e. f/16 at 50 ASA with a 1/50th shutter speed... so at 400 ASA, you'd need an ND.90 to shoot at f/16, but in a pinch, you could also shoot with a 90 degree shutter angle and lose another stop.) So you could even get the right exposure with just an ND.60 in full sunlight, so I'm trying to imagine why you'd ever need to use HDRx as a substitute for an ND filter.