Hello All!

I am to work as cameraman on a documentary in Poland. They have no money and want me to shoot with a Canon GL-2. I tested it the other day and found out that the smallest f-stop is f8. With the ND filter on and at f8 I was unable to properly expose the sky. It was blown out. Normally I would need f16 for this.

1.How does one work with this??

2.Is it okay to put an ND filter between the lens and the wide angle adapter lens, or will this ruin the focus and cause vignetting? (There are no threads on the front of the wide angle converter lens.)

3. They want to blow up to 35mm film possibly. Should I vie for a better camera? (I am spoiled with my own xl-1 but it is ntsc!)

Thanks to anyone in advance who can help!
Cheers,
Robert

Smaller f/stops cause diffraction on these smaller cameras. Use a ND filter between the WA adapter and the lens. The widest zoom setting may cause vignetting, I'd run a few test first to determine possibility of vignetting.

Consider using a faster shutter speed .

I'd go for the external ND filter. You probably will get some vignetting zoomed back all the way with the wide angle adapter, so just zoom in a bit. Shooting at a faster shutter speed can be an option, but it may cause you additional problems in some cases (for example, spinning objects such as wheels may strobe and flicker).

Hi Robert,

"I was unable to properly expose the sky. It was blown out. "

Try a hard or soft gradient ND filter. Do you have a Cokin filter holder?
Go ahead with tiffen or something good one.
The cokin isn't a true neutral.

hope this helps,
Marton