First off, the example here is not the best in any case; with no detail at all in the sky one cannot bring something out that's not there. But I did want to reduce the almost painful brightness of the sky and distant horizon. So thought this was an opportunity to try my graded neutral density (0.6) filter. In practice I found it impossible to rotate the filter correctly with the horizon while looking through the viewfinder! As we see here, I was not very successful. It was also imposible to decern the filter orientation by looking from the camera front. I'm thinking before I use this again I will file some horizon marks on the rotating ring? Has anyone ever had good results with these things?

Is that Chicago? That filter looks like a challenge. It really gives that lightly foggy or heavy haze look.

I have not used one,but seeing how this turned out it could be a real asset for me.Especially with our skies.Be nice to know what other filters are really useful.Besides polarizing.

posted a comment.. and the internet goblins ate it l think.... !!!!!!! oh way way over my head.. but like doug would be interested in the results.. we have a real problem here of winter sunshine.. aand a glare from the sea on coastal shots... love the image by the way.. sweeping angle of the beach...how every thing graduates up.. hugs... will book mark this link nikki :)

I have not used one of this type. I don't use a dslr so techniques are different using a digital camera that does not have a TTL viewfinder.

Seems to me a difficult set up and one that is not very versatile because the graduation starts half way across the filter, you are limited to putting your horizon in the middle and that doesn't seem to easy from your experiences.

I have a square filter system for my camera that it is easy to use and I would recomend to anyone using any type of camera if they want a filter system for landscape photography. See Image for my set up.

Message edited on: 08/11/2005 02:56

Perhaps should add - It looks a bit large here - that is because I bought the larger size so that it would also fit dslr's should I ever be in a position to own one in the future.

Neat! The angle is easy to set, and you can slide it up and down! Any problems with glare w/o a lens hood?

Attached Link: http://www.cokin.fr/

I have not had a problem with glare and not heard of any, they do a lens hood which also fits into the holder should it be a problem and a lens cap if you want to leave the filter holder on the lens/camera. The holder takes 3 filters [or accesories]. I have slotted that warm filter into the slot furthest away from the lens in this pic. but of course you would use the one nearest to the lens first in reality. It is a very versatile system: the front twists to angle the grad. and the filter slides up and down so the graduation can be accurately set on the horizon or for the warm up filter slot it in upside down and just warm the foreground without affecting the sky. I like the idea too that it is only buying another size holder if you want to fit it to another size lens - you havn't got to buy a set of filters for each lens/camera. With ND Grads. I have the ND2, ND4 & ND8 but of course I could have combined the ND2 & ND4 to make an ND8 so it is not entirely necessary to have all of them, same for non grad. ND filters. They do a polariser and many other filters all to fit the system, not sure how it is in US but here in UK there are quite a few people making third party filters which fit in the holders of the major manufacturers. In use I set up the shot composition with just the holder on the camera then press the exposure lock button and slide the filter in. This then shows me an accurate image on the lcd of what I am going to capture and it is easy to see where to position the filter because the cameras exposure meter is not trying to compensate for the new scene. See link for what I have but there are other makes.