macr88

Jeff, I was waiting for him to correct himself. We were talking about a white car not a black one Jarod.

Jarod, you are right about recovering lost data but you would either find a happy medium while taking it or take two pics which is not possible in this situation.

jarod

[QUOTE=arrrmand,Oct 30 2007, 04:21 PM] hm, i never knew such things as graduated ND filters exist.

jarod

Sorry, got confused in my writing. I'm used to using that to darken skies.

macr88

Jarod, can you post a link to the actual filter to be used in this situation. I can't seem to find the right one.

Thanks

I don't care what size it is I just want to see which one.

jarod

It really depends on what you want out of the picture as the picture taker (aka photographer).

There's lots to choose from:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller...mnp=0.0&mxp=0.0

To start with, the photo has no abrupt or extreme transition from light to dark so you'll want to use a soft edge one. Next is horizontal orientation. I don't know what the lighting conditions were, but you'll have to figure out how many stops you want to reduce the light by. They range from 1 stop to 4 stops. Usually 2 stop is probably sufficient. I can't really tell how many stops that picture needs to be reduced by, but if I had to guess, it would also be 2 at max. You could try guessing also by putting into Canon's sofware and lower the stops until the the blown highlights are sufficiently gone to your liking.

From that link I gave earlier, for B+W, you'll probably want #502 grade which is about 2 stops. For other brands, they go by the nd factors (shown in the description):

GND.3 (exposure factor = 2x; exposure adjustment = 1 stop; reduces ISO 1/2)
GND.6 (exposure factor = 4x; exposure adjustment = 2 stops; reduces ISO 1/4)
GND.9 (exposure factor = 8x; exposure adjustment = 3 stops; reduces ISO 1/8)

The exposure factor is the amount of light the clear portion exposes compared to the darkened portion.

So pick a 0.6 or #502 (for B+W brand).