Cokin Graduated ND Review

The Cokin filter system comes in three sizes: A Series, P Series, Z-Pro, and X-Pro. The A series filters are 67mm x 67mm square and can cover lens thread sizes ranging from 36mm to 62mm. I bought the P series holder because I planned on using the filters with bigger lenses. The P series are 84mm wide and fit thread sizes 48mm to 82mm (except 54mm) and work with most of the lenses the A series will fit as well as larger front element lenses such as the common 52mm, 62mm, 67mm, and 77mm Nikon threads and 58mm and 77mm Canons. The Z-Pro filters are sort of expensive but are made of “3^rd Gen CR39 Organic Glass developed by Cokin” instead of CR39 Organic Glass (used in most eye glasses) like the smaller filters and will fit lenses with threads ranging from 49mm to 96mm (except 54mm) and are 100mm wide. The X-Pro fits threads from 62mm to 112mm and are even bigger.

The Cokin Graduated Neutral Density filters are extremely useful, regardless of which size you prefer. The main reason to use a graduated neutral density filter is to keep from blowing out the highlights in the sky of a landscape style photo.  The filters are dark on one half and clear on the other, the only difference in the various styles is the way they fade from dark to clear. The Cokin ND8 P121 has a hard/fast fade. The P121 is most useful when the contrast changes from bright to dark quickly (like a sunset at the beach) The ND8 P121 S has a more gradual fade than the P121 but harder/faster than the P121 F and is great for when the scene is not split by a hard straight line. The P121 F is dark on one side and clear on the other. It fades evenly from one end to the other and can be slid way down to make a nearly even neutral density filter for long exposures.
I have the Cokin ND8 P121, the ND8 P121 S, and ND8 P121 F. I only bought the ND8s because the ND4 and ND2 looked like they would be too light to make much of a difference. I’m sure they would be useful in certain situations. Adorama sells all of the Cokin line in just about every size. If you buy them from these links or through the banner at the top of the page, it will help me keep this site going.

Graduated Neutral Density Filters @ Adorama

(Most Cokins are currently back ordered because of Cokin's management buyout, but Cokin will be back soon)

Welcome Home!

So, long delay, but we had an awesome two days in London! We walked around all day long seeing everything from Westminster Abbey to the Tower Bridge and Waterloo Station...which is a long dang walk. We took tons of pictures and got back to Dan's in Andover to get some good sleep. The next day, our last day (almost), Dan's mom cooked us a nice roast with raspberry apple pie before we left for London! We took our stuff to Gatwick Airport and then headed into town by train. It was raining, but we went to Chinatown, bought another bag so ours wasn't over the 60 pound limit and got some dinner. We took some night shots of the city, saw a guy bust his "boys" full speed on a subway pole and headed back to the airport...our hotel for the night! We ended us locking our stuff to a bench and sleeping under it. That was an awful idea! We slept for about an hour and woke up at 3am and stayed awake for the whole boarding/security process until our plane left at 9am. The ride was nice with plenty of food, coke and touch screen games and music. We got to Nashville via ATL at 5pm! Candace, Beau, and my mom were waiting for us with an awesome sign and it was time to give Hayley her real ring! There was a guy playing guitar and he played a slow song for us and I got down and one knee and did it all again :) Hayley was very excited and everyone clapped for us! Now are back in good ol' Tennessee! Thanks to everybody for actually reading this blog, it was a ton of fun documenting the whole trip through words...and ~12,000 photos! We met some awesome people and we're glad that everyone could keep us with us the whole way!

Stonehenge, Crop Circles, and Avebury!

We had an awesome day! We woke up early, ate left over croissants for breakfast and caught the train to Salisbury at about 11am. We got a bus ticket to see Stonehenge, but it was pouring the rain when we got there, so we just stayed on the bus and went back to Salisbury...then stayed on the bus and went back to Stonehenge (gotta get our money's worth haha). We got off the second time because the weather was great! We walked around taking tons of pictures. It is in a area called the Salisbury Plains where the British military trains every one from pilots to snipers, so we got some shots of a jet pulling some Gs over Stonehenge...not in the same picture though. I seriously had to pee SO bad I was sweating, but you had to leave Stonehenge to get to the bathroom and I didn't want to waste the trip there just because I had to go! So after a little while I couldn't work my camera it was bad so I ran across the place, straight out the entrance, went to the bathroom, then cut everyone in line and went through the booth and back to Hayley...nobody said anything. So, we got plenty of pictures! Dan picked us up (with his dog Jerry) in Salisbury and we went out to hunt down some crop circles out in the countryside. Most of the fields were harvested already, but we saw one huge crop circle that really awesome! Dan, took us by some cool Stone Age burial mounds, and to Avebury where the village is surrounded by two rings of these stones, bigger than Stonehenge, all the way around the village! We ate at the Red Lion Pub in the middle of the rings and rode back to Andover. It's bedtime now and London early tomorrow, so pictures will have to wait!

Ediburgh, Ogle, and Andover!

Sorry for the delay, we had a hard time finding a place to stay, got a negative reference on Couch Surfing from a guy who barely even gave us any direction, and stayed in Edinburgh instead of Glasgow. We had an awesome time in Glasgow with Mathilde and Tich! Mathilde told us about Balloch which is a town by Loch Lomond to the west of Glasgow and we took lots of pictures, I even broke out my macro lens! We missed the train back by less than 10 seconds, but we just went to a cafe for 30 minutes until the next one. We got groceries again and make pizza for dinner back in Glasgow. We got up early and headed to Edinburgh for the day! Patrice was with us for that too and we walked around everywhere, ate some dang good ribs, and mac n' cheese, saw the castle, walked across town for some awesome views then...we had to figure out what the heck we were gonna do! Patrice had to catch a plane to Croatia and be at the Edinburgh Airport at 5am and we couldn't stay with Mathilde and Tich again because they had a full house with some old friends. So, we went from place to place asking for a room (the Fringe Festival is all of August in Edinburgh and there is not a single room anywhere, even on CS). We ended up splitting a 2 person room 3 ways, RUNNING to Waverly station to catch the last train to Glasgow then running to get the train to Mathilde's to get our stuff, then RUNNING back, with all of our stuff to catch the last train back to Edinburgh (while eating Burger King) so we wouldn't have to come back very early in the morning to get our bags...Well, Patrice made his flight and we made it to the Ogle castle in Ogle, Northumberland, England! It was super nice! Since I am the 29th generation of a direct line of Ogles (my Mom is an Ogle and, if you go back 4 generations, so is my Dad haha) descendant of the very first Ogle (Humphry of Ogle 1085-1155)...we just had to stay there! We walked around Ogle, which is a very small community really not even a town. We checked out the land around the place and then just enjoyed the place! The owner's daughter cooked us dinner because we were starving and had no clue that there was nothing to eat in Ogle! She also made us a full English breakfast, tons of toast, juice, and even gave us a ride back to the nearest train station along with leftover croissants for a snack! Our train was late, which is good because we were late too, but then as soon as our train arrived in Birmingham, we saw our connecting train pulling away! Then we waited for another train...it was late, so when we got to Reading, we saw our next connecting train pulling away! So we got sandwiches and tried to call Dan in Andover. We left him a message and just hoped he would be there when we walked off the train in Andover...he was! Good thing because it was raining. Him and his girlfriend took us back to his house where they had cooked a green curry dinner for us, we played with their dalmation, Jerry, and met Dan's mum and sister for a game of Rummikub. We are going to bed now, but in the morning we are going to Salisbury to see Stonehenge and Dan is picking us up at 6:30 and we're going to check out some crop circles around Hampshire! We'll update tomorrow...I promise!

Glasgow, Scotland!

We cleaned the rooms...and bathrooms. We got milkshakes with a guy named John that was working at the hostel from Australia before we caught the train. The train ride to Glasgow was not too long, and Patrice, Mathilde, and baby Rose met us at the train station! Last night, we went to Mathilde and Tich's house, walked through the park and got supplies to make a pasta dinner. Tich (Richard) gave me a sweet "Harris Tweed" hat like the one I saw in Pitlochry! So, we plan on checking out Glasgow today, but so far only breakfast and showers are done and Hayley is playing with the baby :)

Farewell Mano, Louise, Eric, and Gus!

Well, they talked us into staying another night in Lybster! We were just going to be lazy, but we ended up going out along the cliffs on the coast in front of their house in kayaks and the dinghy. It was really cool, we kayaked through a ton a huge caves and tiny cracks in the cliffs! I almost flipped the dang kayak trying to ride a wave across a gap in a rock...almost flipped it and almost made it! I had to wiggle around and push myself off the way I came across. We had a lot of fun and wasted a lot of "petrol" in the dinghy! We hung out with the Dutch couple that were staying with Mano and Louise and Eric, Frenchman...oh yeah, and Gus the Border Collie! We cooked dinner, they had a rice/fish dish and Louise made me some dang good breaded corned beef burger things and potatoes! We slept great, until the Dutch blew a fog horn to wake everyone up for breakfast! Mano headed off to the control tower on his bicycle, the Dutch couple (Rennata and Sander, I think they are called) headed out, and Louise took us and Eric to Helmsdale for a check on the sailboat ropes and some good King Rib and Battered Haddock! They saw us off at the train station and we headed to a hostel north of Edinburgh again to clean some rooms for a free private room and breakfast! Tomorrow, Patrice, the CSer we stayed with in Caen, France is taking a vacation to meet us in Glasgow, Scotland and we are going to meet him and his friends at 4:15pm tomorrow...after we clean!

Home of the Highlanders!

The next day in Lybster, Mano and Louise took us to Wick after breakfast. We saw the Whaligoe steps (317 steps down the cliff to the sea). We walked around in a "European market" in Wick before lunch. I had a beef-n-ale pie with onion rings! We headed back home, passed by the airport where Mano works and a quick stop at the Tesco (supermarket) to get dinner supplies. When we got back, Duncan took me out with a fly rod, we went wading up the river and I caught 3 wild brown trout! They are native to Scotland so it was a lot of fun!  The octopus stew was made for everyone except me...I tried it, it was...different, but they cooked haggis for me along with the swede and potatoes. Then, Mano took us and Eric out in the dinghy to see a castle on the coast and a bunch of caves, we saw a seal and a puffin! It was really awesome, but freezing! Me and Eric stayed up late and watched the night sky, you can see the Milky Way here it is so dark! We saw 4 satellites and 3 Perseid meteors! We are staying another night here in Lybster...