Hi, I’ve been looking at gradient filters for the M3P, mainly for sunrises and sunsets to tone down over exposure.
I find if you try to prevent over exposure using a filter or not the landscape will become very dark and when you edit the picture there ends up a lot of noise.
Has anyone had any experience using gradient filters and will this work to tone down over exposure and have more detail / brightness on the landscape without the noise ?
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Hi Jim. I don’t know whether I’m wrong or right or just good at guessing on this one😁. I’m no pro.
I’ve always had a filter of some sort on which ever drone. Just really because I thought that was the thing to do. Now I’ve been flying a while I just throw one on out of habit 
.
Seriously, they do seem to help, again I’m no pro but I use
Nd4 just as the sun is sneaking up over the horizon
Nd 8 as the sun climbs higher and on really over cast but bright days.
Nd 16 on a bright sunny day
Nd 32 on occasion.
Always kept my ISO on 100 and adjusted the shutter speed
I have had exactly what you describe above, but only with the M3P, not the Air2s. That seems fine.
I find the footage from M3P more contrasty than the Air 2s.
Don’t know whether this answers your question or not🤪
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@Leylo1971 When using a full ND filter it does help with sun over exposure but your darkening the landscape so catch 22, with the Air 2s it’ll be less noticeable as the camera sensor is larger than the M3P, I had a ND64 on for the Lakes picture I posted, I was hoping a longer exposure would give better detail in the landscape when editing.
I have a pair of variable ND filters I’m trying out on my M3P but I’m also interested in a couple of gradient filters too, including a smoky/tobacco one which can look amazing. I know Freewell do some but no direct experience yet so also interested in comments from Those In The Know.
Hi, now here’s the thing. A graduated ND filter will ‘usually’ have a gradient of around 8-10 mm from dark to light. The Air2S camera has a visible height of opening viewed from the front of the camera, of about 15mm (I haven’t taken a measuring stick to it to be exact) That being so, you are not likely to get the full effect without mounting a ND filter in a moveable holder such as those used on DSLR cameras.
It IS possible to get a very short transition ND filter and have it cut to fit the filter holder by a competent manufacturing optician. Another alternative, useful if your horizons are fairly level and not through mountain ranges, is to get a full ND filter and have it cut - simple if the filter is plastic, not so much if it’s a high quality glass filter. Hope that helps…
@GreyDad thats the ones I’ve got my eye on 
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Much better price! Excellent, thanks.
There was a YouTube review of them by a US chap. Watched at the weekend. He also looked at the anamorphic lens too in case you want to shoot sci-fi movies, but he was a bit unconvinced. I’ll see if I can find it, he shot some lovely video over water.
@GreyDad was he not convinced with the anamorphic lens or gradient filters ?
Anamorphic, although he did a separate video on it too 
not watched it yet though.
He liked the gradient and seemed to really like the Pro-Mist filters
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@GreyDad , perfect, nice bit of clarification that they aren’t just a gimmick, thank you.
Set purchased
Has anyone else tried these at all ?
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Expose for the highlights and its an easy fix in editing software, provided the horizon isn’t too cluttered with lots of fine/intricate shapes of course. Or better still, bracket 2 or 3 exposures and merge them. Cheaper than buying a set of filters?
@mynameisjoe thanks for the reply, I’ve only got the paid Lightroom mobile version and web version and it won’t allow you to merge pictures annoyingly unless you pay for the PC version.
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OK for stills, but how are you going to bracket a tracking video shot? Am I missing a neat trick here? 
OP made no mention of video, and the fact I was talking about bracketing exposures would have, I thought, led people to the conclusion I was talking about photos and not video. So no, you’re not missing a trick 
@kings do either of your lightroom versions allow you to work with layers and layer masks? I don’t know lightroom very well so unsure.
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@mynameisjoe no it’s just the pc paid version that allows that to be done, very annoying really, also the pc version is about £10 a month but I can more a less do what I need via mobile for £33 year.
I also mainly take photos, not really done much video wise.
In that case the ND grads may be perfect for you. There are other very good alternatives though, GIMP being one of them and is completely free. I personaly found gimp quite difficult to use, but thousands of others use no other editing software. After Photoshop went down the subscription route I stopped paying for it, I use it so little I just can’t justify the price. If I ever feel I really need to use it least twice a week or to earn money then I might consider shelling out.
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Gimp
(no google it), loads of tutorials on YouTube for this very task ;o)