Morning all,
So, having read that a piece of shade 10 welding glass is a cheap alternative to a 10 stop ND filter, I went to my local welding supplies place and got a piece for the princely sum of £1. Also, it was the perfect size to fit my Cokin filter folder (100mm x 83mm), excellent!
Decided to try out my cheap filter yesterday with a quick try out in the garden, only thes results didn't quite live up to expectations :-\
Having read that welding glass gives a green colour cast, I was expecting to see that type of appearance on the lcd. However, I was getting lens flare all over the image....I was not expecting this :(
Any ideas what could be causing this? Could it be the fact that because I had it in a filter holder and not tight up against the front of the lens, light was getting in? I also didn't have one of the eyepiece 'blind/screen' type things, could that be the problem?
I definitely was not shooting direct into the sun, so I know its not because of that.
I go away on holiday on Thursday evening and want to be able to take this 'filter' with me but obviously don't want to be taking duff shots with it. I guess I could bite the bullet and order up a proper 10stop ND filter and get it in time for my holiday, but would rather save the pennies!
Cheers
Darren
It will not be optical glass I would suspect for a start.
And I guess your stopped down as well to slow the shutter down - any marks on the filter will cause flare.
Don't be a tight arse and buy the proper job! ;D
I blame the credit crunch for having to take these drastic measures ;)
Its definitely not optical glass, and I have discovered that 'light leak' is the problem I was experiencing. Having done some research, I have now purched a Cokin adapter ring and have superglued the piece of welding glass to the riing so that I get a completely tight fit when I attach it to the lens.
The welding glass does give a green colour cast, but by setting a custom WB and/or shooting RAW, this is quite easy to overcome (although I've never set a custon WB before so that could be interesting!) in pp.
I've seen some impressive photos posted by people who have used welding glass as an alternative to proper ND filters, and if I can take photos of a similar standard then it will be £12 well spent :tup:
I'll post some pics up when I have a chance to make use of this new contraption!
Hi Darren,
I take quite a few shots using my 10-stop (it goes with me on every photo trip)... I'll be interested to see how you get on with the welding glass. :)
Quote from: Spiritflier on September 08, 2009, 06:32:37 PM
Hi Darren,
I take quite a few shots using my 10-stop (it goes with me on every photo trip)... I'll be interested to see how you get on with the welding glass. :)
I've noticed that a lot of your photos involve the use of a 10 stop filter ;) And very good they are too!
I got the custom WB setting sorted this afternoon so I now know how to do that, so hopefully there will be some shots to follow in the near future :tup: Popping down to Pagham tomorrow to visit the girlfriends parents so I'll take it with me and see if I get an opportunity to give it a trial run before our holiday to Turkey on Thursday
I tend to use my 100 stop entirely too frequently...bloody lens cap! >:(
Quote from: Darren1978 on September 08, 2009, 09:23:50 PM
Popping down to Pagham tomorrow...
Now there's a blast from my childhood... I used to spend every summer at Church Farm when I was a kid! Many happy memories of that place and it's somewhere I've never got around to revisiting.
I used to love going down to the lagoon or sitting on Bognor beach with my grandparents and a bag of fish and chips! ;D
Quote from: Spiritflier on September 08, 2009, 10:23:59 PM
Quote from: Darren1978 on September 08, 2009, 09:23:50 PM
Popping down to Pagham tomorrow...
Now there's a blast from my childhood... I used to spend every summer at Church Farm when I was a kid! Many happy memories of that place and it's somewhere I've never got around to revisiting.
I used to love going down to the lagoon or sitting on Bognor beach with my grandparents and a bag of fish and chips! ;D
Despite living close to Pagham, I have only ever visited a few times before, and that was when I as a child too ;D Went today and apparently a lot has changed....not that I would have noticed as I don't really remember my visits there as they were so infrequent. Anyway, as requested, here is my first ever shot with my new device....
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2638/3903743593_67b8191c18_o.jpg)
Not the most interesting of subjects (please refer to the photo description to find out why!), but I think it shows that a piece of £1 welding glass can perform a similar job to a proper, and more expensive 10-stop ND filter ;)
I too have one of these £1 marvels! lol.
I had exactly the same problems as the OP, haven`t got around to superglueing a ring on yet. I`ll give that a go!
Alas I have a Zephod Beeblebrox welding mask - clear until the arc lights. Might have to try something like this. Of course I need some way of fixing it to the lens, like filter holders and the like, so it'll cost me a lot more than £1 >:(
Quote from: Tringle WP on September 11, 2009, 06:44:25 AM
Alas I have a Zephod Beeblebrox welding mask - clear until the arc lights. Might have to try something like this. Of course I need some way of fixing it to the lens, like filter holders and the like, so it'll cost me a lot more than £1 >:(
No, just use some six inch nails - job done!!!! :2funny: :legit:
I use the Hi-tech 10stop filter and it causes a magenta colour cast. I have managed to get a bit of a bodge white balance setup in custom white balance on my Nikon. You need to do almost the opposite and go red with possibly a warmer setting.
Getting it into the closest slot will give better results....
Have a fiddle and see how you get on.
I had to have a go at this, I used Blue tac to mount it to the front of my kit lens to try it out and it sticks very well. Again not the best location or image but I just wanted a subject to try it out on.
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4135/4820858586_64ba577905_b.jpg)
I corrected the colour in two steps, taking a custom WB reading in the camera then fine tune to my liking in PS.
My filter cost £3.50 but that's a lot cheaper than £90 for the proper job, I mean, how ofter would I use it ?
Bob
Nice one Bob - as you say not an every day piece of kit to use. Took mine out on a job with me tofday but ended up only doing internal shoot. Going to give it a go next week when I am on the coast. Did you do the custom WB with the filter in place? I had a lot of trouble getting the green cast off mine last time I used it. Forgot what I did before that as it was never so problematic.
Hi Jinky, yes I took a reading before I set out, I placed my gray cloth outside and followed the procedure for taking a custom reading, the image still showed a slight green cast so the final raw image was adjusted a little in PS to my liking.
I was very surprised how well the blue tac held it in place, I will tape a little string to it though and tie that to the strap just in case it slips, the blue tac give a nice light tight seal too.
Bob
I got a cheap filter holder ring from ebay and superglued mine to that. Only fits my 77mm lenses but they`re the ones I`d use anyway. Wish I had cut it down in size a little now though - looks very much DIY ;)
So it seems the welding glass option is growing in popularity ;)
I've still got mine and I too went down the super-gluing it to a filter holder, and must say it does work rather well. I found the having to set a custom WB everytime a bit of a chore in the end (and because I didnt use the glass very often I kept forgetting how to do it :-[) so I purchased a proper 10-stopper for the princely sum of £60 delivered :tup:
As its a screw in filter its still a bit of a pain having to compose without the filter in place, then screw it on once you've got everything just how you want it....then find that on the final turn you nudge the camera or the barrel twists a bit and you have to repaet the process again :doh:
I think Lee make a slide-in filter which would make the whole process a bit more easier....I wonder if they are compatible with the Cokin P Series holders????
Has anyone else tried Glass Tint Film as a filter, I got some free samples sent to me and will be trying them out over the week, let me know if you want to see the results. I have used one of my Cokin ND4s to stick it to and it looks promising.
Bob
I had a look to see if the Lee Big Stopper 10 stop ND grad had come down in frice a bit >:( not only had it gone up but was as scarce as hens teeth .
I still require a big bit of glass as its for my Nikon 14-24, searching the web I found a company in the states that is willing to cut me a bit from sheet, it gets better, I told him it was as a photographic experiment and he said he would send it for free :dance: .
This glass should fit my Cokin XPro filter holder, I'll let you all know how it pans out.