markwilliam1

I found a very nice Schneider graduated ND filter. It is glass and I’d like to hand hold it as I don’t have the mounting system. Can I just hold the filter in front of my lenses with the sun shields attached or should I remove the shields? Any techniques appreciated!

williejoha

That is the only way I use graduated ND's. It puts you in control of where to put the line and also at what angle. The world is not always level. Take off the sun shield and you will be fine.
WJH

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

No problem, as long as you do not pump the lens and blurring your shot. The filter in a holder fixed where you want it is one less thing to worry about.

markwilliam1

Pump the lens I don’t know what that means sorry. I can’t afford the proper mounting system for the filter so the hand held option might work perfectly as I can tilt the filter to match the horizon as the previous poster stated. I’m thinking the glass filter would eliminate scratches?

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

It depends on the type of filter, but regardless, the lens hood should be removed. I personally use rectangular filters (grad ND's and others) and I always hold them by hand, instead of using a holder! I used to use them most of the time, but that changed a few years ago and it just works soooo much better!

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

I meant Bump the lens, but did not catch it in time.

tcthome Loc: NJ

Try it & see how it goes. I have seen a nature & wildlife photographer do a few times on tv. Don't know how the pics came out .

billnourse Loc: Bloomfield, NM

Breakthrough Photography has a 100mm holder for 49.00. It is well built, better than Lee in my opinion, and for half the price.

Bill

secular

Here is a different take on the subject

https://mattk.com/why-graduated-neutral-density-filters-are-dead-to-me/

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Yes you can hand hold the filter.

I presume that the "shields" you refer to are lens hoods?

If so, it depends on the lens and how deep the hood is. You want to position the filter as close as possible to the lens so that nothing on the filter is within the plane of focus. Wide angle lenses have greater depth of field, but use shallower lens hoods. Telephoto lenses have shallow depth of field, but deeper lens hoods.

Personally I stopped using my graduated ND filters some years ago. They were necessary with film, but there are much better ways to accomplish the same thing with digital.

Digital graduated ND filters are available in post processing, but even better.... Either take two or more shots and use layers & masks to combine them or double-process an image and then combine them the same way. Far more control than was ever possible with the filters.

There's no way any filter could do the following...

+ =

Above was done by double-processing a single RAW file... once for the shaded main subject and again for the sunlit background... both exposure and color balance were adjusted. Then in Photoshop using Layers & Masks the "correct" portions from each image were combined (image is slightly over saturated deliberately, due to a printing process being used). It might be preferable to take two (or more) shots to combine in this manner, but handheld shooting and a moving subject ruled that out.

The same technique can be used with any image. It's relatively quickly done once learned... and even easier to do with a scenic shot.... and far more controlled and precise than was ever possible using graduated ND filters. I use Photoshop... but the same can be done with many post-processing programs... any that has ability to work with layers & masks makes it easy.... it may also be possible to do a selective adjustment on a single image.

Paul J. Svetlik Loc: Colorado

I use a photographic tape to hold the neutral density graduated filter(s) - a method I discovered from Tim Harris.
You can find more about his technique on the Internet.

rydabyk Loc: Florida Panhandle

That's the one I bought for a second camera. I was really impressed with the build quality although I shouldn't have been surprised since I use their filters and the quality is IMHO unsurpassed.