Cokin ND grads...

Well my ND grads arrived on.. saturday I think it was, so sunday's sunset was the perfect trial for them. I placed the order 1am friday morning, so 8am saturday is pretty awesome i'd say, so thanks once again... SRS! No suprises there. Funny story really, I ordered them at another shop for £10 less (being the cheap teenager I am). 2 days later, an email arrived stating it would be 21days. So of course, I cancelled imidiately intending to order from SRS. They cancelled the order two weeks after that, after 4 emails. After another two emails I received the balance last wednesday, another week after. Not dropping any names, but don't order from http://thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk.

Anyway, onto the photos.
The Cokin ND's give a slight magenta cast, so thats where alot of the colour has come from. I must admit one or two are pretty extreme but I can assure you 90% of the photos is in camera, only removing rubbish or non-aesthetically pleasing stuff from the scenes (bright red bouyoncy balls in the water etc..)

K20D, DA18-55II, Cokin P121M, P121S, Hoya NDX4.



















3 image HDR processed and tone mapped.




2 shots joined at the hip. (The horizon).
The colours were true to the water after RAW processing in cameraraw, and the blue was slightly enhanced in the sky in photoshop.

Shot between 730 and 8 on my local beach.
These are the only views I took (though I took quite a few, upto 6, variations on each) and i'd say, they all came out well: 100% success rate

Love the colours, the sky and the lighting in numbers 3 and 5 - looks like you're getting good use from your new purchases.

Number 2's probably my least favourite - nothing wrong with it technically but that expanse of mud at the front just looks untidy and uninteresting to me. Just my $0.02.

I like images 1,3 & 5. Over all a good set. I have a set of ND grads I bought before I left the uk but I haven't used them yet as I dont have the adapter rings for my lenses.

In your post your say
So did you use all three of these filters together or seperately ? or in a combination ?

Regards
PaulM

I love your last one - the water is perfect with the long shutterspeed.

Overall - you did excellent and it seems to suit your style very good.

I do love my cokin p serie as well. Very handy.

Very nice results overall

Yes, the Cokin P do have quite a magenta cast. This is particularly evident if you stack 2 or more filters together. Every P size filter I have used has this colour cast (not just Cokin).

The Cokin Z-Pro filters have a lot less magenta tinge to them - probably 1/2 to a 1/3. But then they're much more expensive and right pain to carry around

Matt

MattMatic, apparently hitech filters have less of a tinge, and lee filters have next to none.

And then you get onto singh ray, the god of all filters.. heh.

And pnjmcc, aye, I used all together most of the time. With my UV and polarizer with the filters (they were on there when i first had a play in my room at 8am when i recieved the lenses) there was vignetting at 18 wide open, but here it was fine shooting 18mm. Although I was shooting F/8-F/29, and usually around F/16.

Depending on what view i was taken, I would often reverse the lighter grad so that I got a razorsharp cut along the horizon, with the darker grad providing a soft transition. Saves me buying a soft and a hard set I guess..

The HiTech P-size ones I have are almost identical to the Cokin ones.
Yes, the Lee are said to be better... except I've heard they have more of a problem with blue skies (where the Cokin Z-Pro/X-Pro apparently outperform them). But the Lees (if you can afford them) are better at producing a moody image

Regarding angle of view - I have used the Cokin P-sized filters on the Pentax SMC-DA 12-24 (which is a 77mm filter). If you hacksaw off all but one of the filter slots on a Cokin P-holder you can get it to work with very little vignetting. To remove the vignetting completely you have to file out the circular aperture in the plastic holder a bit.
Now Cokin do a special wide angle holder which may possibly be better.

So, P size is fine for almost everything Pentax
(Unless you want less magenta and can afford the Cokin Z-Pro or Lee )
Matt

well i wasnt planning on using them for daytime much anyway
so it doesnt really matter for sunsets, it kinda adds to it

still, filters are very expensive, sadly.
next on my list.. hoya ND400. 9 stops