Any advise on filter kit?


Remedy

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May 18, 2011
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any good starter kit to recommend for landscape photography?

Thanks!
 

For start, maybe a CPL filter

Then if you need long exposures, get some ND filters
 

singhray kits.
 

any good starter kit to recommend for landscape photography?
Understand what and why you might need, then get the filter if you really need them. Sure, many people use CPL, others use NG and GND. But that does not mean one has to get any 'starter kit' to do landscape photography.
 

tianya filter kit. just get the premium one. it covers everything, from gnd, cpl, colored gnds, nds. shld be more than enough.
 

sorry are the filters you mentioned Round screw-on filters or Slot-in filters? roughly how much for filter holder with adapter ring?
 

sorry are the filters you mentioned Round screw-on filters or Slot-in filters? roughly how much for filter holder with adapter ring?
Tianya are slot type, they do have screw on as well. Their holders are cheap, and it's same as Cokin P type sized holders. If buy from ebay, < $15 for both adapter ring + holder. If it's Lee will be expensive. Do note the lens used as well as there's sizes for the square types as well for Hitech, Lee filters, Singh Ray, so the holders would be different. Tianya is a good starter economical filters, but it's resin type so tendency to have color cast would be there.
Have you take a look at this sticky thread on filters, it's very useful.
 

TS, if you get the starter tianya kit, do not get the colored filters. Colored filters are no longer required for digital photography...
 

I would recommend that you start to shoot first before buying anything. I started shooting landscape with just my kit lens 18-55mm
When you start to feel that you lack something, thats when you get limited by your equipment, and buy those that you need to get what you want to achieve
 

You need to mention a budget.

For square filters, a cheap one like Tianya can do pretty fine.
But there is no need for a set
Just get the filter holder, GND, 6 stop ND
If you need a polarizing filter, get a CPL from a reputable brand (the Tianya one is not good and very susceptible to flare)


If you have a large budget, then look at B+W; Cokin; SinghRay for the same stuff mentioned
 

I do agree with yc.

Shoot first.

For me, I shoot first. Then gradually bought a bw 110 to slow down shutter to get silky water effect during day, then bought the full tianya set to explore further. Damage not much as tianya is cheap.

Will probably got for LEE once I get the hang of it. But I'm just shooting more first.
 

Tianya filters have a horrible color cast on them.however to get started and experiment..get them...try out the different nd and gnd filters.eventually you'll know for yourself what you need...then buy better ones.i started with all tianyas to test..and now i find i only use about 2 to 3 filters..so i bought better filters fire those 3i use.tianya is a good and cheap way to start experimenting.
 

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Hi Spin,

exactly... I'm still experimenting, and would be trying them out in more details tomorrow. Woo Hoo....

Trying to figure out which ones I need now.
 

Hi Spin,

exactly... I'm still experimenting, and would be trying them out in more details tomorrow. Woo Hoo....

Trying to figure out which ones I need now.

Yep! don't expect great IQ photos from Tianya&#8230;you won't get it..colour will be off..maybe some vignetting etc&#8230;you get what you pay for&#8230;BUT because they're soo cheap, it's better to experiment with them than to buy a whole load of expensive filters you may never use.
Generally there's only 1 type you'll need..ND (2-4 stops) and Hard GND (2-4stops)
But with those you also won't use ALL of them.Good filters can stack..Tianya CANNOT.
I rarely shoot landscapes these days because Singapore just doesn't have good natural landscapes to shoot..but what i found most useful for myself is
1) CPL ( get a good one)
2) 2 and 3 stop ND
3) 3 stop Hard GND (i bought the 1-3 stop set so i can stack if needed but usually i just use the 3stop one)

Because i already have the Tianya adapter and holder, i bought the Hitech filters which are WAY better than tianyas, not too expensive (est SGD30 per filter) and they fit into the Tianya holder.
 

any good starter kit to recommend for landscape photography?

Thanks!

Hi dear Remedy

For beginners embarking on shooting landscapes I would put necessary filters in the following order.

1) GND filters
2) ND filters
3) Polarising filters

GND and ND filters are as indispensible as my camera on holiday trips. I have hardly any use for polarisers even though I have two very good ones. Your mileage may vary, but polarisers do have their un-duplicable roles.

Some of the cheaper GNDs may introduce color casts, and a gradient color cast is very tedious to remove ( doable but involves a fair bit of know how on post processing ) Color casts inherent in certain ND filters are easier to remove since it involves the picture globally.

There are many other *fancier* filters that you may encounter along the way, that may or may not be useful for your cause. But for starters, these are the key filters.

Ryan
 

Singh-Ray or Lee, etc filter systems are top-notch and their prices are also top-notch. If you are willing to pay, these are the filters that you shall be considering. If you are just experimenting, you can probably start with Tianya. You can upgrade at a later stage when you know you need something better.
 

any good starter kit to recommend for landscape photography?

Thanks!

Hi Remedy,

There are a few things to consider. The first is the lens/camera combination you intend to use the filters on, and if you intend to stack. If you intend to stack extensively and shoot a UWA perspective (anywhere from 14-20+mm in 35mm film terms) then you need to get a larger filter size to avoid vignetting. That is the first logical step, I would think.

The next logical step is your budget, and whether you will carry a lot of filters around. If everyone had a Doraemon black hole to store 8000 filters I think we'd all want to buy all the filters if we had the money. Assuming that you have a limited budget, my advice is to focus on the things that you CANNOT do without Photoshop, and whether you need such an effect or like it at all. Personal preference does play a huge role in things and just because many other people are doing long exposure photography doesn't mean you should jump on the bandwagon. The more commonly used filters that can't quite be replicated through digital manipulation include: Neutral Density filters, Circular Polarizers (note that you have uneven polarization on UWA perspective so you might avoid this if you intend to use the filters on UWA and this bothers you). Next comes Graduated Neutral Density filters. As I've pointed out earlier (I think I did) in our exchanges, these can introduce nasty casts, especially when stacked. Some people can live with it, some can't. I couldn't and I didn't want to buy a good set of filters (not willing to spend the money with upcoming commitments), so I resorted to digital blending.

For ND filters I suggest you skip Tianya altogether. Either Lee's Big Stopper or B+W ND filters would work (the primary decision here is screw-in vs slot-in).

For GND, Tianya is fine, but lends a moderate magenta cast as I've found earlier on; Hi-tech is more affordable but still has a light magenta cast especially when stacked (for the 0.9 strength and heavier)...

I hope this helps somewhat!