Deciding between Hitech resign filters or small glass colored filters for backpacking

[Drew Wiley]

Hope you don't mind unsharp negs.

[LabRat]

I remember from astrophotography that shorter wavelengths are affected more by bad filters, but longer (like red) are not affected... Master astrophotographer Alan McClure would make red filters from red acrylic or cellophane for his large filters, and would work perfectly...

The one thing to be careful of is how well these fit on the lens, as misalignment from synthetic filters is less of an issue, as the material refracts less, but if any wave in the filter while shooting a point light source, and it can set-up multiple reflection/highlights (like streetlights at night, etc)...

And the filter holder should seal well from stray light around it's mounting, or mysterious streaking/fogging can be seen on film...

Steve K

[Bernice Loui]

Edmund Optics also sells a variety of filters:
https://www.edmundoptics.com/products/


Bernice

[Jim Jones]

I prefer a small stack of the largest size of glass filters my lenses need, well protected by front and rear caps. A few step-up rings are bulky, but light They can be stored on the rear of the filters. A filter wallet is convenient, but wastes space.

[m00dawg]

The Hitech holder seems to be pretty good in the times I've used it, although I haven't used it all that much (mostly sunrise/sunset times). Does seem like it blocks light around the adapter ring. The resign ND grad filters seem decent - as I recall they are middle of the road quality-wise.

I'm leaning a bit towards glass filters though given the optics and they also might be lighter weight than the resin filters if I opt to get ones for the lens thread. I have a crappy UV filter I weighed anyway that's quite light.

Actually I almost wonder if I should just take a CP, YEL8 and RED25 and not bring my ND grads....but then I'll end up with some amazing sunrise or sunset where I might want some detail in the landscape... Not bringing the grads would save quite a bit of weight though.

[Drew Wiley]

The best way to learn is too keep things simple. Maybe I'm a bit jaded because every single shot I've ever seen done with a ND grad looked fishy or contrived. But in any event, the more complicated gear gets, the more likely you invite a mishap, or miss the key moment. If you keep things simple, you will learn to respond intuitively rather than waste time fussing around with non-essentials.

[Bernice Loui]

Difficulty with "graduated" ND filters, they are made with essentially a straight line across which tends to produce a manufactured look that is more often than not quite different than the way Nature presents an environment.


Bernice

[Jim Jones]

If a graduated filter improves a shot, the effect can be duplicated with more control in post processing.

[m00dawg]

If a graduated filter improves a shot, the effect can be duplicated with more control in post processing.

That's a valid point, although I found that's harder to do with film than images on my DSLR (though I'll fully admit it could be my scanning process - a V800 with Silverfast into 16-bit per channel TIFFs usually). With something like Velvia though, I assume there is only so much that can be done in post? I'm quite new to slide films but I do recall Velvia is known to have 5-7 stops of range (compared to, I think 14 or so with Ektar?)

I did some tweaking on LighterPack and I managed to get my total weight down to 7.26lb if I buy new film holders (Chamonix as they're rather lightweight apparently) and not bringing along the ND filters and rings. The ND filters are about .43lb. I could bring an extra film holder and still be under that increase or probably cram a small P&S (like an Olympus XA2 perhaps).

I'm over-analyzing it for sure but yeah sort of a hard decision to be had. I expect some grand landscapes, though I've taken pretty photos without them for quite a while. On the other hand, it's not an everyday trip so...

I do think I'm sold on using glass filters though as far as the black and white goes...

[Drew Wiley]

The well-known dude who first popularized neutral grads and even got his name on one brand of them once lived in the neighborhood, and I can't think of a single shot he ever took that grads didn't stink up. And when PS came along, things only got worse. But if SUV commercials are your main income, fake might be welcomed. But it almost made me vomit to see reflections in streams more saturated and brilliant than sunsets above them. But he never did his own printing, so simple dodging and burning or unsharp masking was out of the question. Maybe someone could invent a photochromic optical glass ND filter positioned just in front of the film plane itself, using an initial exposure to create a precise ND map. But I'd never buy it. Got exactly what I wanted understanding color film itself.