Lee announces very hard neutral density grads for seascapes

Well if dpreview levied a tax on Sony trolls they would get rich very quickly.

"The problem with these filters is framing ... what happens if you don't want the light boundary in the middle of the frame."

*facepalm

Hey, thx for that hot take on light light v. low light, bro. Absolut Fuego.

True, but the answer is simple: expose shot 1 for the sea, shot 2 for the sky, and combine. NOT "HDR", just two exposures blurred together at the horizon - rather like using a Lee ND Grad, but with complete control

Brian

Seascapes are the easiest images to hand blend most of them do not have any elements that intrude into the sky you simply load two images into PS as layers one exposed for the sky one for the foreground.Once loaded there are about a half dozen ways to blend them using layers and mask.

Maico Yes they are. They are clear resin. I should know I have used them and one snapped in a holder. Check with Lee filters themselves if you like.
The only glass ones are the Pro NDs that are actually made by Hoya. Check your facts!

ThatCamFan. I am not sure what point you are trying to make.

Grads are not essential with Photoshop and bracketing that will always produce a cleaner and better final product. You are using just the lens and not filtering clean light through perspex.

A tripod in essential for sharp images.
Manual in essential in certain situations like shooting panoramas
A camera is essential or you wouldn't have a photo.

poorly thought out response sorry..

Tools get replaced over time by modern ones. Filters like this will go away to the fringes of the market like film did. The majority will use digital and do the filter work in post. It is not like it's the death of photography. It is just no longer the common tool used.

I have a bunch of filters that have been sitting around for years now. Too much hassle bringing them and the filter mount along, compared to just editing in post. Not to mention I need all the adapters for each lens I use. Maybe I am lazy but doing it in post is much more convenient for me.

Okay Akophoto do a long exposure bracketing which will look natural and NOT have overexposed skies and have the clouds moving.

I'd rather spend my time getting things right in camera* than sitting at my computer fiddling around with layers, masks and adjustments in Photoshop thank you.

*which, is what everyone should be doing in the first place IMO. My PP regimen mostly involves sharpen and crop, and the occasional spot removal of a dust bunny on my sensor because I hadn't cleaned my sensor recently.

I'd rather not fiddle with filters while the light is fading.

@Digitalis32
If all you do is to shoot seascapes then yes.

But if you don't have a flat horizon and have objects of interest on one side you will get heavy shadowing on these things which will need PP to fix.

And with cameras like the D800 you very rarely need to bracket. You can just use Lightroom with their inbuilt grad/reverse grad ND filter and then brush in/out the shadowing on the sides.

It takes less than a minute. Far less than messing around with filters when the light is changing quickly or you are working in near darkness.

@studor

If you have objects on the horizon use a softer grad, I use several different grades - not all of them as that would be a waste of money. BTW I don't idly fiddle with my filters, I have practiced hands that can change filters quickly so I never miss out on good light. With ND grads you can reduce flare in an image, as I recall there is no LR filter that can accomplish that.

Unless I am mistaken these new filters are "very hard neutral density grads".

If you get the shot using your method then great for you.

But to suggest what "everyone should be doing in the first place" is a bit rich.

If ND grads reduce flare for you, again, good for you. Most of my photos of this type have no sun in the frame, so no flare issues here.

I have a bunch of grad NDs as well as a reverse grad ND. The only times I use them now is for doing time lapses.

For me this is the only advantage of using such filters.

All my photographic life (which takes in film from the mid-70s, up to about 12 years ago, when I switched to digital (mainly)), I have HATED the effects of badly position ND grads. Images look SO artificial, and as others have noted, tall objects poking above the gradation just look silly. You can get SO much better results by squeezing off 5 bracketed exposures in quick succession, covering whichever range of EV you want to play with - not forgetting, there's probably a good spare 1.5-2EV at either end of your individual raw frames to play with, if you don't want to merge images.

Untill Lee find a way to make ND Grads that exactly match the skyline I am photographing, I will stick to modern methods.

Brian

"What is photoshop?" Please.
You probably had all your photos done at the drugstore, too, back in the day? If you did your own developing and enlarging, or had a pro-shop that handled adjusting developer types, and times, as well as dodging and burning, during printing, you wouldn't ask that question.

Yeah I've seen some people shooting with an enormous amount of kit, a bunch of accessories hanging off their tripod and camera, and I would think they are creating something truly magical. But the results I've seen have been mediocre at best. I just arrive on scene, bracket the shot and go, sometimes without a tripod. I'd invest the time in post rather than fiddle with a bunch of filters, holders, adapters, etc.

Halleluja! You nailed it!

Yeah, some guys buy TV Dinners and they are ok too. Why cook?
I NEVER said that EVERYONE who uses those filters are successful.
I was talking about the quality and diversity of Lee Filters. That's what this article is about.

For movie production. Yes. BBC Top Gear used them a lot to great effect.
For stills no.

Why stay limited by the look of one hardware filter when post-processing gives you more control and choices ?

Because that control and choices have a price. Unless your sensor can really capture the entire dynamic range needed, you will have to expose for highlights so then in post you have to dramatically boost shadows, meaning your shadows will have far more noise than if you had just used a filter.

@graybalanced,
Why taking one shot exposed for the highlights when you can use braketing and blend the shots with selective masks? For sure, for better results a tripod may help. But a small tripod is less expensive than several ND filters of various grades and not more bulky, especially when using filters and holders for wide-angle lenses...

@Karroly
Since when has it become a crime to do PP on an image shot with graded filters? When you get back to your computer, files shot with filters gives you strictly more "control and choices" in PP than without.