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Thread: ND grad filters for 8x10 and the tale of 3 bears

  1. #1

    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Yorkshire, England
    Posts
    117

    ND grad filters for 8x10 and the tale of 3 bears

    For my birthday I have asked for a set of Lee ND grad filters for my 8x10.
    Whilst I shoot mainly FP4, in part because of cost, I do have a stash of Provia 100 in the freezer. My only lens at the moment is a Apo-Symmar 240mm but I a likely to get a 360 or 450 in the near future.
    So , back to the story of the 3 bears ...considering the large size of the ground glass, do I need to buy the hard (Daddy bear), soft (Mummy bear), or medium (Baby bear) grad filters? I have had conflicting advise from Lee and one of their resellers, who Lee suggested I call about the matter, so am unsure which way to go.
    Some say that I should go for the soft set for subtlety but others say go for the hard set as the soft will be too gentle on such a large viewing area. Will a 360 or 450 have a similar effect as a grad fitted to my 240?
    Confused.
    Of course I could go for the medium grad but no-one has suggested that.

    thanks ...Sweep

  2. #2

    Join Date
    Mar 2016
    Posts
    232

    Re: ND grad filters for 8x10 and the tale of 3 bears

    I just watched a video on the Lee website (Joe Cornish explaining the very hard and medium grad filters). Seems that the very hard might be of interest if you make images of seascapes. I imagine it would be no good to me as the few times I've used neutral grads with LF it's been cityscapes or in mountains, where I think the hard grad would be a nuisance.

    He also mentioned it would be useful with the small sensor digital bodies - sounds like marketing hype to me, not sure how that's supposed to work. Even if true, 8x10 isn't a small sensor.

    I'd just get cheap ND grad filters from China off eBay to have a look and see what you think at first.

  3. #3

    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Yorkshire, England
    Posts
    117

    Re: ND grad filters for 8x10 and the tale of 3 bears

    I watched that video myself after making my post as I remember him mentioning Goldilocks which was a complete coincidence!
    I have a local stockist who keeps trial sets of different levels of graduation (hard, medium, soft) Lee filters so I plan to give them all a go. Not ideal as I will be in a shopping centre and the staff have already advised, not suprisingly, that they have little experience with filtering 10x8 but I am grateful for the opportunity.

  4. #4

    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Posts
    189

    Re: ND grad filters for 8x10 and the tale of 3 bears

    For Large Format the thing to beware with is vignetting that the filter holder might cause, the catch to test for is vignetting when at full rise/shift as you might not actually see vignetting with the lens straight on.

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