David Noton Photography

Despatches September 2006 : Monthly column as featured in Practical Photography

There’s something I have to get off my chest. In the early 1980s I occasionally used graduated tobacco filters. Yes, it’s true. It was just something we all did back then. Whilst Wendy was wearing shoulder pads borrowed from the Kansas City Chiefs I had a mullet and dabbled in gruesomely filtered skies. Then I moved on to an 81EF, dubbed the Dallas filter ‘cos it gave everyone a tan. In the early 90s I started using a ‘champagne’ filter, more accurately known as ‘soft poo’. It was jacket mounted on a mag and was a combination of an 81C with a touch of diffusion. I had the therapy, and with the help of friends and family I pulled through. I still used a grad blue to jazz up the sky on a grey February day in Avonmouth, and I had a brief penchant for using inverted coral grads to warm the foreground, but my filtration habit was under control. As time’s gone on I’ve become more and more minimalist, ND grads and polarisers are pretty much all I use now. They have long been essential items though; I’d be lost without them.

Now digital capture has shifted the goalposts. Some believe shooting digitally obviates the need for filters, others carry on using them just as before. I believe they’re still essential, but the way I use them has changed. Who’s right? I am, of course. Neutral density graduated filters, bits of resin to stick in front of the lens; they’re not exactly hi-tech, but still damn useful.

OK, with the camera on a tripod you can shoot two frames, one exposed for the sky and one for the landscape and merge them in Photoshop. It works well, and is a very handy technique to master. In fact doing a number of exposures to cope with extremes of contrast in an image and merging them is a really useful option. The perfect registration between the images makes the merging easy. I’m not going to get sidetracked into Photoshop Speak now but believe me, it’s not rocket science.

Poppies growing in amongst a field of wheat on an organic farm nr Corton Denham at dawn, Somerset. Canon EOS-1Ds mkII, 17-40mm lens @ 17mm, f22, ISO 100.

Come stand in a field in Somerset with me. It’s dawn in June, so we’re up early, about 4.30am and the poppies are swaying to a gentle breeze. My Canon EOS-1Ds mkII is on the Manfrotto with the 17-40mm lens on. Just before the sun appears and causes flare problems I shoot a frame exposing for the foreground, then as the sun pops over the hill I make another, this time -3 stops under, exposing for the sky. I check the monitor for highlight alerts and do a couple of brackets. Done. The beauty of this technique is you can have very fine control over the balance between the sky and landscape. So, what am I talking about, clearly filters are now redundant? Well, just come to Tasmania with me.

Boats moored in Macquarie Harbour nr Strahan at dawn, west coast, Tasmania, Australia. Canon EOS-1Ds mkII, 17-40mm lens @ 21mm, 1/20 sec, f11, ISO 100, Lee 0.6ND graduated filter.

It’s dawn again on the shore of Macquarie Harbour on the west coast, and I’m stood wondering if that mass of clouds that’s been dumping rain on us all night is breaking. There’s a steely quality to the light so I start exposing pixels. This time though, I’m using a 0.6 ND grad filter to hold back the sky. Why not use the 2 exposures technique? Those boats are gently bobbing on the swell. Because of that movement getting a perfect join between the two images would be nigh on impossible, that mast cutting the horizon would have a double edge to it. By using a filter I mange to record all the information I need in one frame. I can still fine tune the balance between the top and bottom of the image by merging darker or lighter conversions from the same RAW file, one for the sky and one for the water, utilising the exposure latitude of the RAW file.

That exposure latitude is the key difference between using filters with film and digital. A graduated neutral density filter is essentially a tool for controlling contrast, usually between the sky and the landscape, so obviously the increased latitude available with digital will change the way we filter a given scene. Shooting on Velvia my most used filter is the 0.9ND grad, but when using that on the DSLR it often looks over filtered, the sky is too heavy. I’m more often using a 0.6ND grad and am trying to ensure I’m recording all the detail in the image. If all the tones are there I have ultimate flexibility in postproduction on how much drama I want in the sky.

Eroded coastline nr Loch Ard Gorge, Port Campbell National Park, Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia. Canon EOS-1Ds mkII, 15mm fisheye lens, 0.3sec, f22, ISO 100.

We’re now stood perilously on a sheer cliff top in Port Campbell National Park, just off Victoria’s famous Ocean Road on Australia’s wild southern coast (victoria0151). It’s dawn again and I’m trying to shoot these dramatically eroded stacks and cliffs. It’s a job for the 15mm fisheye, and we all know you can’t get filters on fisheyes, so here I have to use the 2-exposure technique. If there were anything moving in the picture near the join, in this case the horizon, I’d be stuffed. Trees blowing in the wind are a frequent problem, but here I’m OK. It’s clearly the right technique for this situation. But if there’s movement, or you’re working handheld, you’re knackered, a filter is the only option.

Reflections on the lake at dawn, Croome Park, Worcestershire. Canon EOS-1Ds mkII, 24-70mm lens @ 29mm, 0.2sec f14, ISO 100, Lee 0.75ND graduated filter.

Cut now to another dawn on the other side of the world, a summer’s morning in Worcestersire. I’m on a job for the National Trust shooting their Croome Park estate and it’s one of those magical mornings that cleanse the soul. A layer of mist sits on the lake, the birds are in full song and I feel as if I have the world to myself. It’s Happy Hour, that magical time for photographers spanning the twilight and sunrise when the light goes through all sorts of wonderfully subtle changes. In a good location like this, with mist and reflections it can seem as if there are just too many photographic options. I’m trying to use the panoramic camera as well as the DSLR, but it’s easy to miss an opportunity whilst crouching over the bag fiddling with cable releases. I’ve got the Canon on the tripod with a 24-70mm f2.8 lens. Here, with so much going on, I don’t want to have to bugger about doing multiple exposures, neither do I want to run the risk of a swaying branch making life difficult, so I’m using a 0.75 ND grad filter. In the few minutes before sunrise I shoot the subtle pinky/blue tones (croome9750), then swivel round as the sun starts punching through, backlighting the mist in liquid gold (croome9756). These moments are so special. I expose a couple, check my highlights and the histogram, and switch to the big panoramic, confident that it’s on the card. Just a few more with the soft poo? Maybe not.

Reflections on the lake at dawn, Croome Park, Worcestershire. Canon EOS-1Ds mkII, 17-40mm lens @ 20mm, 1/12sec, f13, ISO 100, Lee 0.75ND graduated filter.

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