“The Images Are Full of Vibrancy”: Tim Swallow Reviews a Graduated ND Filter

There is a knock on my door, it’s the delivery guy. As he hands me the package I realize it’s from Urth and I’m excited. I unwrap my item and I’m greeted with the beautiful packaging of my Hard Graduated ND8. I open it and my token inside informs me I have planted 5 of over 6 million trees for Urth. This is awesome.

I contacted a model and my cinematographer and we planned an adventure. We are to shoot the first and last light of our day and I am eager to test my new filter. I don’t usually shoot on a tripod as I never like shooting the same spot twice for my personal work. I like fast and loose, even if the shutter is open.

I attach my filter to a 35mm prime lens and shoot on my digital camera, so I can instantly review the images and make changes.

I love the motion blur I am achieving in lighter conditions with this filter. The clarity and colours produced with the lack of extreme highlights or lowlights is so nice. It can be a little hard to see my subject at times through the viewfinder however with the lens I am using I can gauge easily before pressing the shutter.

The images look and feel more cinematic and textural. I would definitely use this filter for my personal art series as the images are full of vibrancy and the motion blur allows the image to breathe and at times replicate the brush strokes of a painting.

Typically a filter you may use for landscapes, I’m interested to experiment further in harsher conditions, in a fashion and portraiture space to gain in-camera results for balanced highlights in midday sun.