[SA Chris]

Does your lens not have one of them weird two-part sigma hoods that takes filters?

I dont think so? Just got the integral hood, then a conventional lens cap that attaches to cylindrical hood which covers the whole inegral hood? Or am I missing something clever it does?

[slackline]

Only got GIMP at the moment, need to get down with using gradient masks.

GIMP  is shit for processing RAW (and uses UFRaw in the background anyway).

Check out RawTherapee instead, its what convinced me to switch to shooting RAW (not that its actually improved my processing, but its very intuitive to use and I never understood what I was doing in GIMP)

[Johnny Brown]

What Dave said, Chris - big lump of blu-tack. Did me proud for years.

Have you tried the grads in Lightroom? I tend to use the lightest grad I can get away with in the field now, and add more in LR if needed.

[SA Chris]

As I said, only got GIMP. Think some technology upgrades are needed/

[Johnny Brown]

Lightroom is a hell of a lot better value than a couple of filters. Currently on special offer at Amazon - only £95.

[dave]

Does your lens not have one of them weird two-part sigma hoods that takes filters?

I dont think so? Just got the integral hood, then a conventional lens cap that attaches to cylindrical hood which covers the whole inegral hood? Or am I missing something clever it does?

Check if the cylindrical portion, it might be threaded for filters.

[Paul B]

I shot in RAW and bracketed very widely. Only got GIMP at the moment, need to get down with using gradient masks.

Its piss, put the sky layer or whatever on a layer over the top, then add a layer mask. Pick your gradient tool and drag from where you want 100% to 0% to be on your mask. You can change the gradient to get the desired effect you want (also there's no need for a linear change if that's not whats necessary), just keep dragging and seeing what looks right. If you want to get fancy throw in an exposure adjustment layer and you've instantly got the LR gradient tool with a shed load more room for manoeuvre (in exposure terms).

Also the mask can be manupulated for horizons that aren't linear with your brush tool on the mask.

You can do the same with a single exposure, an exposure adjustment layer and the same mask too. Its worth recording as an action if you do it a lot.

[Paul B]

Check out RawTherapee instead, its what convinced me to switch to shooting RAW (not that its actually improved my processing, but its very intuitive to use and I never understood what I was doing in GIMP)

or Darktable, it looks closer to LR (but Slackers mentioned it was a bit sluggish).

[slackline]

Check out RawTherapee instead, its what convinced me to switch to shooting RAW (not that its actually improved my processing, but its very intuitive to use and I never understood what I was doing in GIMP)

or Darktable, it looks closer to LR (but Slackers mentioned it was a bit sluggish).

Not so easily available for Windows though, which is likely a barrier (RawTherapee have native Windows builds to download & install).

Tried it out again and its not as slow as it was, but didn't feel as intuitive having already spent time getting to grips with RawTherapee.

[SA Chris]

Ok, so what's a good slot in filter system to start with? I know that the filters themselves are reasonably interchangeable, but am looking to invest in a good sytem to slot them into. Not top of the range, but also not so shit it falls to bits the first time I use it.

Cokin?

[dave]

Unless you're using big lenses the cokin P system is fine. Cheap and bits for it are readily available. Not terribly smooth when sliding filters in or out but it does the job. Will accept all cokin P sized filters (i.e Hitech 85mm, Kood 85mm etc). Main issue with slot-in systems is not getting the holder in shot with wide angles. With a cheap plastic cokin (or kood, almost identical) holder you can just hacksaw the front couple of slots off.

Next step up in quality for the same sized filters is the Hitech hardware - never used this but will be a lot more customisable and smooth:
http://www.formatt.co.uk/stills-filters/hardware-85mm/products.aspx

After this is Lee filters 100mm, top drawer stuff. Open your wallet, take a deep breath and say "help yourself".

[Paul B]

will I be needing a 100mm set for use at 17mm on a FF body and will they require some kind of wide angle adapter too?

I take it these holders will take 10 stop lumps of resin too?

[dave]

If you're going with Lee then you'll probably want the WA ring. Will take 10-stop welding glass fine.

But i used to use the sigma 10-20 on dx with only the cokin P sized 85mm filters, 15mm equiv view, with nay problems wi vignetting, so you might be able to get away it, unless you've sold the 400mm and want to spend up on a 100mm system.

[Paul B]

I was tempted by Hitech... The other week I borrowed a set of Lee grads at the crag but I haven't a clue if they were 85mm or 100mm. There was some hard vignetting (at 17 mm, went away at 20 mm) from the holder but the Hitech modular system allows you to either have one or screw additional slots on as necessary.

I was even going to splash out on an 'actual' lump of resin rather than the welding glass, hitech again.

[dave]

If they were Lee they were 100mm. (Unless they were the new smaller 75mm set but they're only really for rangefinders/mirrorless.)

Was it the holder that was vignetting (rectangular bits coming into the sides of shot) or the adaptor ring (vignetting at the corners)? Did it have the big ring on the front for the polariser?

The Lee mounting system (as the Hitech) lets you have as many or as few filter slots as you want.

[Paul B]

It had the wide angle adapter on the polariser. The vignetting didn't overly strike me as rectangular.

[dave]

the polariser ring or polariser can give you vignetting if there's too many slots on, might have been that. You can strip them down to the bare minimum of one slot, and don't have to have the polariser ring on if you don't want either.

[Johnny Brown]

I'm sure some Canon forum would give the required setup for your 17mm, otherwise its just a case of trial and error.

Worth noting though, that you're unlikely to want to use a polariser at 17mm, and if you can get it working at 20mm+ you can always resort to blu-tac for the odd 17mm shot.  Pretty sure on my Lee rig the lens ring tends to cause problems before the polariser ring. I find myself cropping to either 4:3 or 16:9 a lot nowadays too, so its less important.

[SA Chris]

Unless you're using big lenses the cokin P system is fine.

Unless you're using big lenses the cokin P system is fine.

After doing a bit of reasearch, I think Cokin looks a good compromise.

My 12-24 is 82 or 83 mm diameter though, and it looks like the P series is only good for up to 84 mm. Am I going to get vignetting problems?

I'm wondering if it's worth futureproofing it and going for the Z Pro series, as I may at some point invest in a quality telephoto lens for surfing and wildlife pics and don't really want to have to buy a whole new set of filters.

[dave]

With your 12-24 you might get away with cokin-p if you just blutack the filters onto the lens, otherwise it might be a bit tight.

If you're stepping up to 100mm filters then deffo look at hitech or lee as the quality is top drawer and they're all about as expensive as each other these days.

[SA Chris]

I think the 100mm might be worthwhile investing in, will do some direct comparisons.

(so nice I quoted you twice? not sure how I did that?)

[dave]

So good he quoted it twice.

[Johnny Brown]

Which 12-24 are you using Chris? The Nikon and Tokina are both 77mm, I can use my 100mm Lee setup fine at 12mm.

If you get a big tele for surfing shots its pretty unlikely you'll want to use any filter other than a plain/ UV to protect against spray. Grads don't really work on long lenses, and polarisers will tend to eat too much light unless in the tropics. The faster lenses will have a slot for drop in filters anyway - never seen anyone with a slot system on a proper tele.

[SA Chris]

Which 12-24 are you using Chris? The Nikon and Tokina are both 77mm, I can use my 100mm Lee setup fine at 12mm

Sigma. i think I'm going to go for the 100mm Lee System, although it looks like they are having supply problems for some of their filters atm.

Having a look around, tru most lenses I would consider have drop in systems.

Thanks for the help, now to spend some cash!

[dave]

If you're getting Lee grads be wary of the soft grads, the ones I had were way too soft to see where tou were putting em (graduation covered about 3" of filter). Might be worth getting hard grads instead.