neutral density filters

[WDWFigment]

I'm thinking I might go with this one, but $43 is a lot of money. Hmm...over to ebay I head.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...c_mri?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance

 

[annnewjerz]

In addition to a NDx400 that I have (which is pretty pricey, so I won't even recommend it)---I have a Hoya NDx8 (.9) filter. Still not cheap (about $60 on B&H) but you can probably find it cheaper with one of your Bing or E-bay deals.

Here is the link.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/146962-REG/Hoya_A77ND8X_77_mm_Neutral_Density.html

This one works well for some daytime long exposure shots like running water or slight ghosting in sunlight, but won't get you those really long exposures. If you aren't looking for anything more than a second or two, this one should be fine.

The Tiffen you linked to seems like the exact same thing I have, just a different brand. From what I understand, Tiffen is fine.

 

[VVFF]

what are you looking to use it for? Do you want to shoot wide open with fill flash more often? Do you want to blur water? Do you want to blur clouds? Do you want to "remove" crowds of people from long exposure shots? ND filters have a variety of purposes and picking the right filter strength will be very important. Do you care if your camera will not autofocus with it on?

 

[WDWFigment]

In addition to a NDx400 that I have (which is pretty pricey, so I won't even recommend it)---I have a Hoya NDx8 (.9) filter. Still not cheap (about $60 on B&H) but you can probably find it cheaper with one of your Bing or E-bay deals.

Here is the link.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/146962-REG/Hoya_A77ND8X_77_mm_Neutral_Density.html

This one works well for some daytime long exposure shots like running water or slight ghosting in sunlight, but won't get you those really long exposures. If you aren't looking for anything more than a second or two, this one should be fine.

The Tiffen you linked to seems like the exact same thing I have, just a different brand. From what I understand, Tiffen is fine.

****, that was a Tiffen!? I thought it was a Hoya (obviously it's too early for me...). I think I'd rather pay $20 more for a Hoya. Unless someone who has a Tiffen indicates that it's good.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to achieve 4 second exposures during the morning and the Golden Hour with the filter.

what are you looking to use it for? Do you want to shoot wide open with fill flash more often? Do you want to blur water? Do you want to blur clouds? Do you want to "remove" crowds of people from long exposure shots? ND filters have a variety of purposes and picking the right filter strength will be very important. Do you care if your camera will not autofocus with it on?

I know that I want the strongest filter possible, I'm just shopping brands/models at this point. If I told you what I planned on doing with it, I'd have to kill you. Seriously though, unique shot ideas around here are like water in the desert...

 

[annnewjerz]

Ideally, I'd like to be able to achieve 4 second exposures during the morning and the Golden Hour with the filter.

If you set your ISO to the lowest you can and really stop down the ap, I think in the post-sunrise and pre-sunset hours you should be able to get pretty close to 4 seconds with the NDx8. I've only used mine mid-day (didn't even use it at all in Disney) so I cant be positive, but it sounds do-able.

If you aren't planning on buying today and I'm home, at some point this weekend I can run out with my NDx8 on the D90 to see if I can get a 4 second shot out of it, this way you'll know if it's worth spending the money on.

Seriously though, unique shot ideas around here are like water in the desert...

Agreed, I don't blame ya! That's why even though I wasn't sure about my plan to use the Lensbaby at the Osborne Lights, I didn't tell anyone that may be there before I was.

Oh and ETA: If you're willing to spend a bit more to get a Hoya, I would. I'm not willing to spend huge bucks on filters, but Hoya is a decent mid-range brand and I haven't noticed any diminished IQ when using mine.

 

[WDWFigment]

Okay, maybe I went too far when I said "strongest possible". I didn't realize there were ND filters beyond 3 stops. Now I see a 6 stop one (presumably there are more). I also see the points about not being able to autofocus with the 6 stop filter (now I see what you meant, VVFF...before I was sort of scratching my head).

Given the costs of the 6 stop filter and the possibility of it being a PITA to focus, I think 3 stops is what I want/need. If I end up needing more for certain circumstances, I could always stack the polarizing filter, right? Whereas conversely, if I need fewer stops, I can't "make" the 6 stop filter become 3 stops (and I'm not buying multiple filters).

 

[VVFF]

Okay, maybe I went too far when I said "strongest possible". I didn't realize there were ND filters beyond 3 stops. Now I see a 6 stop one (presumably there are more). I also see the points about not being able to autofocus with the 6 stop filter (now I see what you meant, VVFF...before I was sort of scratching my head).

Given the costs of the 6 stop filter and the possibility of it being a PITA to focus, I think 3 stops is what I want/need. If I end up needing more for certain circumstances, I could always stack the polarizing filter, right? Whereas conversely, if I need fewer stops, I can't "make" the 6 stop filter become 3 stops (and I'm not buying multiple filters).

Yes you could add on your polarizer to lose a stop or two. You do risk more flare obviously in this case.

I bought a B+W 1.8(6 stop) 77mm ND filter. After trying it out on a flowing stream I found I still needed to stop down further than I would have liked(daylight and snow) to get the exposure I wanted. So I returned it and bought the 3.0(10 stop) ND filter. Is it overkill for twilight situations? Yes. But my goal was to avoid diffraction apertures when I'm shooting in sublight. Ideally, I'd have two filters. One that's 10 stops or more and one that is 3-4. I'd use the latter for contrasty situations where I wanted to use large apertures with fill flash without high speed sync.

Right now, high speed sync takes care of most of the times I want to shoot wide open with flash so its unnecessary for my purposes. That's why I asked what you were planning on doing with it. If you want to remove people from shots I'd recommend at least a 3.0 ND filter.

 

[annnewjerz]

Okay, maybe I went too far when I said "strongest possible". I didn't realize there were ND filters beyond 3 stops. Now I see a 6 stop one (presumably there are more). I also see the points about not being able to autofocus with the 6 stop filter (now I see what you meant, VVFF...before I was sort of scratching my head).

The NDx400 that I have is 9 stops and I can say that it's basically solid black. The few times I have used it, I have manually focused just figuring it'd be easier. I think for most people, unless you are looking for a crazy-long daytime exposure, 3 stops should be fine.

If I end up needing more for certain circumstances, I could always stack the polarizing filter, right? Whereas conversely, if I need fewer stops, I can't "make" the 6 stop filter become 3 stops (and I'm not buying multiple filters).

Yes, you can always stack additional filters to make the exposure a little longer if you wanted. The only way to make the 6 stop filter become a 3 stop would be to open up your aperture so such a long exposure wasn't needed.

With a 3 stop filter I think you'll need like f/16 depending on the time of day. With a 6 stop filter, you have the option of keeping the aperture small and doing a longer exposure---or opening the aperture up to say f/8 and doing a shorter one.

May sound confusing, but it makes sense in my head!

 

[VVFF]

The NDx400 that I have is 9 stops and I can say that it's basically solid black. The few times I have used it, I have manually focused just figuring it'd be easier. I think for most people, unless you are looking for a crazy-long daytime exposure, 3 stops should be fine.

I think 3 stops is fairly limiting actually. If your normal exposure with your ideal settings puts you at 1/400th a second or so(lets say F5.6 or so during daylight), then a 3 stop filter only gets you to 1/50th a second. Beyond that you have to start closing down the aperture beyond what you may want.

Oh and btw Figment, My 50D was able to focus with center point focus w/ F2.8 lens(extra sensitivity point active) with a 6 stop ND filter.

 

[annnewjerz]

I think 3 stops is fairly limiting actually. If your normal exposure with your ideal settings puts you at 1/400th a second or so(lets say F5.6 or so during daylight), then a 3 stop filter only gets you to 1/50th a second. Beyond that you have to start closing down the aperture beyond what you may want.

Oh and btw Figment, My 50D was able to focus with center point focus w/ F2.8 lens(extra sensitivity point active) with a 6 stop ND filter.

Based on the fact that Tom said he wanted to use it basically within an hour after sun-up and an hour before sun-down, I don't think a 3 stop is unreasonable if all he wants to do is get some slight daytime motion blur. There will be much less light than using something like this out in the open afternon sun. I (personally) don't mind stopping down my lenses up to f/11 or so, but yes Tom, if you are looking to stay in the f/5.6 range, you might need something a bit darker.

 

[WDWFigment]

Damn, VVFF, now you have me thinking that a 6 stop filter would be better. Now I just need to find one that isn't $100!

Flash is irrelevant to my planned purposes and I don't plan on removing people from any shots with the filter (to do that, I just outlast them in the parks!).

Ann - sun up and sunset are the currently planned purposes, but you never know. Most of the time I completely forget to consult the list, and just end up shooting whatever I see. There is one "killer" shot that I know I won't forget and that's during the golden hour, but I could end up using it during midday, too. I'm not sure. I think I want whatever is least limiting.

 

[VVFF]

Damn, VVFF, now you have me thinking that a 6 stop filter would be better. Now I just need to find one that isn't $100!

Flash is irrelevant to my planned purposes and I don't plan on removing people from any shots with the filter (to do that, I just outlast them in the parks!).

Perhaps you could buy both and return the one after playing around with them a bit? My entire purpose of buying a ND filter was avoiding diffraction when I wanted a really long exposure. The 6 stop was adequte, but still was maybe a stop to little for the daytime long exposures I wanted. I agree with annnewjerz that if you are looking for twilight/golden hour photos anywhere in the 3-6 stop range should be fine.

 

[boBQuincy]

I agree that 3 stops is not much, I have an 8x filter and don't use it much. If we figure the sunny 16 rule says 1/ISO @ f/16 and the lowest ISO we have is 100 then our baseline is 1/100 @ f/16. Add 2 stops to get to f/8 for best sharpness and to get 1 second @ f/8 takes 9 stops!!!
Subtract maybe 2 stops for morning/evening light and we still need quite a dark filter.

My Xsi focused ok with a 6 stop (1.8) ND *and* a polarizer, even in less than bright daylight. Just look for a nice spot with sharp contrast to focus on.

 

[annnewjerz]

If you can swing the 6 stop, I think that would be better also, it just seemed like you didn't want to go there.

I think getting a darker filter and opening up the lens more if needed for a shorter exposure is better than having to stop the lens down, decrease ISO, and stack filters.

 

[PhotographyDR]

Tom:

Well as usual I am late to the discussion but one thing that I have tried is stacking two polarizers on top of each other. The closest one to the lens is the circular and the farthest is a linear. I was able to pick up a cheap linear one since I already had the circular. I had mixed results as it did cast a slight blue tone over the shot as I rotated the filters in opposite directions. But this was easily dealt with in post. These by no means beats a true ND Filter but it did perform pretty well in a pinch and did not cost me much. (especially if you have the first circular polarizer. I think I got out of there for about $25.

Just another option, since price seams to be a big deciding factor.



Still a little "Blue" but I have edited since then and it looks cleaner. But Cheap.

 

[WDWFigment]

Thanks to everyone for the input thus far. I am really glad that I started this thread, as I otherwise would've purchased a .9 filter thinking it was the strongest, and I doubt I would have been satisfied. I am still looking for input (I'm not going to purchase one until Monday at the earliest), so any advice is helpful.

Another question - what names might a 6 stop filter go by besides 1.8? I've tried all sorts of search queries, but all I can seem to find are B+W filters. I'd really like a cheaper option as they are $85...

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Well as usual I am late to the discussion but one thing that I have tried is stacking two polarizers on top of each other. The closest one to the lens is the circular and the farthest is a linear. I was able to pick up a cheap linear one since I already had the circular. I had mixed results as it did cast a slight blue tone over the shot as I rotated the filters in opposite directions. But this was easily dealt with in post. These by no means beats a true ND Filter but it did perform pretty well in a pinch and did not cost me much. (especially if you have the first circular polarizer. I think I got out of there for about $25.

Singh-Ray makes a variable ND filter like this. It's good for 2 to 8 stops. It also saves you the trouble of having to screw two filters on. I've got an older one and have found just a tiny magenta color cast, but it's not very noticeable. It's also marked, so you can see how far you can go before you've gone too far (at a certain point the image goes to poop). Another cool thing is that you can set up your shot and do your focusing with it light and then rotate over to the dark side. Finally, it makes for a handy iris control when shooting video. On the downside, it's priced like other Singh-Ray filters. That's a really, really big downside.

 

[annnewjerz]

Another question - what names might a 6 stop filter go by besides 1.8? I've tried all sorts of search queries, but all I can seem to find are B+W filters. I'd really like a cheaper option as they are $85...

NDx64 or ND64 is what I would search for.

 

[boBQuincy]

Another question - what names might a 6 stop filter go by besides 1.8? I've tried all sorts of search queries, but all I can seem to find are B+W filters. I'd really like a cheaper option as they are $85...

When we get into the really dark ones there are not a lot of choices. About all I found was the Hoya ND400 (which I bought and didn't like the coating so I returned it) and the B&W 1.8 (which I bought and kept).

 

[WDWFigment]

Anyone have any experience with this? There is very little about this company out there, but a couple posts on dpreview seem pretty positive. Doesn't seem to be too bad of a price for what it does...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Fader-ND-Filter...ewItemQQptZCamera_Filters?hash=item2eaa047136

ETA: "# According to the optics theorem, it is not recommended to apply this filter for wide angle lens (<24mm, 35mm film format equivalent)." Why is that? I may be going to an 8mm (what is that, like 12mm equivalent?) and most of the shots I need this filter for are UWA, so that alone might be a dealbreaker. Is it just a minor vignetting problem?