Large Format Landscapes

[Steve M Hostetter]

8x10" fujichrome w/ 305 Kodak @f4.5

[StoneNYC]

I always used Cokin P series and X-Pro series but, some of my students say that Lee and Hitech are much better....anyway, I never needed nothing better than Cokin and they are cheap. And no, I'm not a Cokin endorser! I never could endorse anything related to photography, just for saxophones and saxophone reeds, by the way, 2 american brands....

The only cokin's I've seen were plastic. I would never put cheap plastic in front of my expensive lens, it seems to kind of defeat the purpose, also I try my best to keep weight down.

I've thought recently of downgrading my filters to save weight, (all 77mm with step-up/down rings if needed) but like to have the extra width for stacking filters with a wide angle.

For example this image I took has 3 filters on it...



I screwed up a little but that's because one of the filters was a polarizer and the other was a graduated neutral density and I think I turned it a bit by accident, shot on my 8x10 and cropped 6x17 format (but not 6x17, actually since it's 10" on the long side, man I'm forgetting my algebra...?) you get the idea.

I'm actually thinking of picking up this...


http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/394725-REG

Because I feel like I need more density than I'm currently getting. (Or howeve you would say that you want the sky even less bright).

Would have liked to have matched this scene better...



Both of these images in this post are 8x10 with a tiffen gradND, an 85B (because there's a color version I've yet to show) and a polarizer.

I know that the other poster mentioned those glass square filters, but it's too much to carry and keep clean, would rather use round filters when hiking.

Other image details...

Portra100T souped by Praus, and HP5+ in Ilfotec HC 1+31 Rotary 6m

[StoneNYC]

8x10" fujichrome w/ 305 Kodak @f4.5

Dreamy! Which fujichrome?

[Nana Sousa Dias]

All Photos made with cheap plastic Cokin filters in front of my expensive lens, all of them Schneider (SA 47 XL and Symmar S 150)....I love these filters....they are cheap and they are damn good ;-)

[alexn]

Another set of beautiful images Nana. I used cheap cokin filters for a very long time until I started shooting digital. They never worked well on digital so I upgraded to lee filters. Now shooting film again I think I might sell the lee filters and use the money to buy a 47mm.

[StoneNYC]

All Photos made with cheap plastic Cokin filters in front of my expensive lens, all of them Schneider (SA 47 XL and Symmar S 150)....I love these filters....they are cheap and they are damn good ;-)

Haha I'm glad it works for you

I'm not saying you can't get good images from them just that I don't want to lol

[skiers4life]

Thanks for the kind words everyone!

OH!!! I didn't notice the G in that... Graduated... Duh if I had seen that I wouldn't have asked... lol but what does "soft" mean?

As others have mentioned, the "soft" describes the transition between the dark and clear areas on the filter. Supposedly they are useful for uneven horizons, such as mountains, when a hard transition line cannot be used. Practically though, I have not found them to be very useful, especially for large format. Due to the "sensor size" of the cameras we use, "hard" transition filters are actually still pretty soft...even at very small apertures.

[StoneNYC]

Thanks for the kind words everyone!



As others have mentioned, the "soft" describes the transition between the dark and clear areas on the filter. Supposedly they are useful for uneven horizons, such as mountains, when a hard transition line cannot be used. Practically though, I have not found them to be very useful, especially for large format. Due to the "sensor size" of the cameras we use, "hard" transition filters are actually still pretty soft...even at very small apertures.

Thank you so much for the extra bit of info, now I understand and also know that probably from my work, a soft filter really isn't necessary, but it's good to know that they exist in someway thank you so much.

[Nana Sousa Dias]

Haha I'm glad it works for you

I'm not saying you can't get good images from them just that I don't want to lol

They don't interfere with the image, Stone. ;-)

[StoneNYC]

They don't interfere with the image, Stone. ;-)