Square filter for Tokina 11-16

Hi everyone,

after a few years with no camera (something you don't learn until you get divorced...) I'm finally back with my hobby.

 

I bought a nice Canon 77D and on Friday I should be getting a Tokina 11-16.

I'll be shooting some landscaping, looking for a nice sunset by the beach. I'd like to get some square filters, ND grad, most probably Cokin (good price/quality compromise).

 

So far the best set that I found under 50 euros is this one .

 

My question for you guys:

do you think that I'll be able to use these filters at 11mm?

 

Any advice?

 

Thanks for any input

I wouldn't even bother with grad filters these days. Just shoot RAW, expose to the right to keep your highlights from blowing, and deal with the shadow areas in post.

 

The fixed dividing line of a grad filter can look obvious and hackneyed, whereas you can create any division, shade or colour of highlight/shadow you like in an image editor.

 

The only filter you can't really synthesise in PP is a polariser, or a really deep ND to blur water or clouds, etc.

MM Nothing wrong with an ND-Grad with soft transition i think..

 

Most (all ?) digital camera's are not able to "cope" with "Bright sky, dark see" differences in EV , and a ND Grad filter can be a great help in those situations which otherwise get blown out or under exposed parts.. There is no software that is able to repair in post the image information that is simply not there in the image i think..

 

FOrt he filter set : it will cause vingetting for every setting wider than ~14 mm on this lens , there are very large filter frames available formounting on wider and bulbuous lenses but they are reayly expensive (if you find an affordable one please tell me... )

Even with a 77mm filter ring, I'd be concerned about vignetting, especially at the wider zoom settings. I've used the "P" system on my Nikon 20mm f2.8, and could see the frame outline.

"Most (all ?) digital camera's are not able to "cope" with "Bright sky, dark see" differences in EV...."

 

- Sorry, but I have to disagree.

I've posted this example before, a long time ago, and digital sensors have improved quite a bit since then.

Top is the full frame, and below is a crop from under the shaded bridge with the shadows boosted by about 3 stops.

 

As you can see, the DSLR has little trouble coping with the pure white building in full sun, and with the deep shadows of dark brickwork in shade. Two layers in PS with different 'exposures' (from the same RAW file) could easily be selectively blended to create a pseudo HDR image. This would easily compete with the 2 stop shading that a typical grey grad could produce.

 

The ND grad is definitely a 'legacy' product from the age of film, when you were lucky to be able to squeeze 7 stops of SBR onto a transparency. So extending this limited 'dynamic range' was useful and often necessary.

 

Nowadays, the 10 to 12 stops you can capture with a RAW digital file needs no such help, since camera-body and lens flare make it highly unlikely that any landscape subject will produce more than 12 stops brightness range at the sensor plane. Unless, of course, you include the sun in the frame. But even a strong ND grad won't help you there.

Do you also have an example of a dessert or beach in bright sunlight ( sun in or just outside the frame) with mountain, or dark sea backdrop and clear sky ?

- witt h a dynamic range of lets say around 20 stops

- where you did not need HDR or merging of shots

- no blown out highlights

- detailed shadess

- no noise caused by boosting the shades..

 

A nikon D810 ( one of the best DSLR's when it comes to dynamic range) gives you around 15 stops f Dynamic range

A human ey, depending on the person, between 20 and 24 stops max. ..

As explained, no matter how wide the SBR is, the brightness range of the image that reaches the sensor/film plane is degraded significantly by lens and body flare. I estimate that anything over 12 stops at the image plane is pretty difficult to achieve in practise. So it really doesn't matter what SBR is in front of the camera, as long as you don't include a very bright point source against a much darker background - the sun for instance.

 

My estimate was reached by the following:

1. Average scene reflects 18%

2. Best practical surface blacking/flocking reflects about 1% or greater.

3. Sensor/film also reflects around 18%

4. Light reflected from walls of camera dark chamber gets totally diffused and uniformly reaches shadow areas of image.

 

Therefore if we just multiply 18% * 18% * 1%, we get a pretty close approximation to the amount of stray light bouncing around the dark chamber and polluting the shadows of our 'average' image. That works out to 0.0324% or a brightness ratio of 3,086:1 which is obviously less than a 4096:1, or 12 stop, range.

 

And that's not taking into account any lens flare or excess image circle outside of the frame area!

 

Of course you can dispute these figures, and make silly claims for the reflectivity co-efficient of the mirror-box/dark chamber, or for the reflectance of the sensor/film surface, but any realistic figures that you plug in are still going to get you nowhere near to an insane 20 stop image brightness range.

 

"- witt h a dynamic range of lets say around 20 stops.."

 

- That's outside the measurement range of most spotmeters, and would require metering, say from a backlit cloud to half a metre down a rabbit hole. Be sensible CPM.

Edited July 5, 2018 by rodeo_joe|1

[quote="

So it really doesn't matter what SBR is in front of the camera, as long as you don't include a very bright point source against a much darker background - the sun for instance.

 

I'll be shooting some landscaping, looking for a nice sunset by the beach. I'd like to get some square filters, ND grad, most probably

 

 

I agrree totally, Joe, but the op looks at an ND grad exactly for that reason, shooting sunsets possibly including the su in the frame, while keeping the foreground recognizable.

For this a combination of ND grad and in post lifting the darker shades a bit , i feel is more effective and achievable than just relying on post processing .

 

I set a challenging request whre a dynamic range of the scene itself is high ( not uncommon for a sunset situation) , to show that even the modern DSLR;s (like the one the OP uses) need a bit of help in these type of conditions ,,,

 

No current camera enables you to catch that type of scene the way your eyes register it, and no current affordaqble equipment is able to present it either …...

do you think that I'll be able to use these filters at 11mm?

 

I've had the Tokina 12-24 f/4, and used it with Cokin filters. With the standard holder, which can take 3 filters, you will have severe vignetting. You will need the single-filter Cokin holder, and even then zoomed in a bit is already better.

I found ND Grads on a digital camera of very limited use - the 3-stop one in extreme situations can do the trick, sometimes. You don't want a Cokin filter in front of your lens with the sun in the frame - they're nice, but not that good. The filter will cause flare, and not a tiny bit.

Merging two exposures in an image editor simply does yield better results without giving an over-the-top HDR tonemapped look. Current sensors are capable enough. So, personally I wouldn't bother, and first start shooting with your new lens, work on the resulting files and then decide whether you still feel you need filters like this.

 

If you decide to go for a set, I'd avoid the colour ones completely (in the link there is a blue and orange one) - again effects done much better, easier and with much more control in post-processing.