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I often recommend using ND filters during the day to get better looking time lapses with some motion blur.
When shooting Holy Grail sequencese however, I mostly don't use the filters and here is why:
All in all working with filters would be a hassle and a perfect result cannot be guaranteed. The best option would be to use slide-in filters (like Lee) because you can remove them quickly and they usually don't cause vignetting because of their size. But still removing the color cast and having to match everything manually is rather complicated.
Conclusion for me: I go for the trade-off and shoot with shorter shutter speeds at the beginning of a day to night transitions. I try to start with the ISO as low as possible (D810 now allows for ISO 32!) and shutter time as fast as required. It might be necessary to avoid shooting directly into the sun.
I still try to use a wide open aperture (to prevent flicker) or rather wide open (when using Lens-Twist, Manual Lenses or the Novoflex Adapter) to have enough light available when it's totally dark.
Yes, it's a compromise, but the only other reasonable option I know is to motorize the aperture. But this will then require a separate controller and motor that I don't want to have to deal with.
With my method I usually get excellent results.
When shooting Holy Grail sequencese however, I mostly don't use the filters and here is why:
- Removing the filters while shooting is difficult without shaking the camera and/or losing frames. Even one lost frame WILL be visible in the final result!
- Matching the color of the image with filter with the adjacent image without filter exactly is mostly impossible. You will always see the transition in my experience.
- The same goes for the vignetting introduced with most filters.
- Adding and removing filters will not be reflected in the metadata of the images, so Auto Holy Grail and Match Total Exposures will NOT work. To make the adjustments you would then have to create the 2* and 3* keyframes besides the ND-Change manually and match the exposure manually in Lightroom before applying "auto transition special 2*/3*" to properly connect the exposure curve.
All in all working with filters would be a hassle and a perfect result cannot be guaranteed. The best option would be to use slide-in filters (like Lee) because you can remove them quickly and they usually don't cause vignetting because of their size. But still removing the color cast and having to match everything manually is rather complicated.
Conclusion for me: I go for the trade-off and shoot with shorter shutter speeds at the beginning of a day to night transitions. I try to start with the ISO as low as possible (D810 now allows for ISO 32!) and shutter time as fast as required. It might be necessary to avoid shooting directly into the sun.
I still try to use a wide open aperture (to prevent flicker) or rather wide open (when using Lens-Twist, Manual Lenses or the Novoflex Adapter) to have enough light available when it's totally dark.
Yes, it's a compromise, but the only other reasonable option I know is to motorize the aperture. But this will then require a separate controller and motor that I don't want to have to deal with.
With my method I usually get excellent results.
