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A user on dpreview asked:

“I’m looking at ND filters that twist onto the lens
Or buying a cokin P adaptor
I been reading a few reports which dont look favourably on the cokin filters.
But dont know”

My answer:

Buying the cokin system has lots of advantages.

An adapter ring for a different thread size costs about $10, making all your filters work with all your lenses.

Another important thing is that threaded grad NDs force you to put your transitions right in the middle of the frame, where the cokins are large enough that you can actually slide that transition all the way out of the image, or make the whole image go through the darkest part-and anywhere in between!

An grad filters aren’t restricted to NDs, BTW…

So I carry one package of P filters, a few adapter rings, and all my lenses are able to use all my filters.

Complete filter kits and samplers are dirt cheap on eBay and others, and many vendors make their filters for the popular Cokin systems.

Oh, and finally.. you can make your OWN filters out of just about anything-including gels or plastic you find at the hw store!

See my previous article about the Cokin system here.

Something to think about…

I was at a show at our local veterinarian, and I took shots that were all ad-hoc and casual. I just walked around the show and took in what I could. There were rescue dogs from a volunteer rescue organization there, and I took a lot of shots of their shepherds.

I also took a few candid portraits, and one of them provides a great opportunity to show just how dramatic a photoshop makeover can be, as well as fix a common mistake of mine by letting my self be caught in the reflection of the subject.

Here is the original, from thumbnail:

So what we want to do are basically two things:

1. Flatter our subject with touch-ups
2. Remove my reflection from the sunglasses
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See the end of this post for the actual RAW file used in this tutorial so you can edit it along with me in the post.

In the previous tutorial, we saw how the controls work in Adobe Camera RAW, or ACR. This time we’ll be dealing with something that only RAW can deal with-bad pictures. Adobe Photoshop is fine when the picture is good, or you want to take artistic license, but is useless when it comes to saving an image.

When would this happen? Well, it happens all the time, really. Every time I hand my camera to someone to take a picture with, the shot is inevitably bad. The problem is, I can’t sit there and teach them how to take pictures, compensate for lighting, etc., so I’m screwed, right? Wrong! I had a waiter at Giogio’s Table in Virgin Gorda, BVI take a picture of my wife & I on our 10th anniversary in April, and he took it with the ocean outside behind us. We came out as black sillouettes.
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In this article, I discussed how poorly the Naneu Pro K3L was constructed, and the problems inherent in the design.

I sent it back to Naneu Pro, and they contacted me right away, apologizing for the problem, and asked that I either wait for the new K4L or K3L (due out in a few months), or choose from something in their current catalog under $199.95.

I was very impressed with this offer, as I had forked out $149 for the bad bag. I chose the Tango shoulder bag in green, and it came almost immediately.

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Canon 40D, Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS USM, 1/1000, f/2.8, ISO 100, Exp Comp +1