Variable ND Filter Recommendations Please

Metal God

Metal God

Suspended / Banned
Messages
1,058
Name
David
Edit My Images
No
Up to now, I've never used ND filters in my landscape work, but I would now like to try some long exposures, so I'm thinking of getting a variable ND filter. There seems to be a ton of them on the market, so if anyone could make some recommendations, that would be great. I have a budget of around £100.00.
 
7Artisans True Color is a great performer, especially for the price. But if you are wanting to do wide angle shots with blue sky in the composition you might not be happy with a variable ND.
 
Is another option a second hand Lee system? or something? must be a few of those knocking about, RE the sky.
 
My advice would be to avoid variable NDs as in my experience the results are usually patchy and they are rarely strong enough to give really long exposure times. You would be better off with a set of individual filters... 3, 6 and 10 stop ideally (ND8, ND64 and ND1000).
 
I should be about to review a K&F variable density filter (they are sending a sample to TP) and the review will be posted when it's done.
 
nandbytes said:
there's some discount codes too should OP prefer to buy new
Click to expand...
It appears the codes are no longer good.

A variable ND is (almost?) always a linear polarizer in front of a circular polarizer, and the revoring is no different. But the revoring is interesting in that it has its' own built in adjustable step up ring for various filter thread sizes. And it allows you to position the CPL portion for the direction of light, which is not possible with (most?) others; unless you don't screw the filter all the way on.

The only reason for the second layer being a CPL instead of an LPL is to allow for effective autofocus with SLR cameras. It is not needed for mirrorless, rangefinders, etc... so it might become less common.
 
The obvious effects of cpl nature can very easily result in very substantial sky exposure differentials, particularly when shooting with anything wider than 50mm in clear conditions. It is not something i used beyond my initial test and i have a pretty good one.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
The obvious effects of cpl nature can very easily result in very substantial sky exposure differentials, particularly when shooting with anything wider than 50mm in clear conditions. It is not something i used beyond my initial test and i have a pretty good one.
Click to expand...
It's just the polarization, an LPL will do it as well. In fact, a CPL is just an LPL with a quarter wave plate behind it to depolarize the light that hasn't been filtered out. Two LPLs (a variable ND w/wo QWP) can cause cross hatching/banding in clear blue skies; which is even worse than the gradient type shifts that can occur with a single polarizer. And it is more likely to occur the more sky you include (wider focal lengths). That's why I said a variable ND might not be ideal for landscape shots that include a lot of sky.

If I were just going to mess around with long exposures I would probably just exposure blend multiple images in post; and not mess with ND's at all. Exposure blending also has *the advantage of being able blend in something with less blur that you want to stand out by masking the top layer (i.e. one pedestrian in a crosswalk full of blurred people). Exposure blending allows for more creative application of the long exposure (total time of all exposure combined)... it does require more time/effort in post, but it is also free.

(*also possible by blending a short exposure with an ND exposure)
 
sk66 said:
If I were just going to mess around with long exposures I would probably just exposure blend multiple images in post; and not mess with ND's at all. Exposure blending also has *the advantage of being able blend in something with less blur that you want to stand out by masking the top layer (i.e. one pedestrian in a crosswalk full of blurred people). Exposure blending allows for more creative application of the long exposure (total time of all exposure combined)... it does require more time/effort in post, but it is also free.

(*also possible by blending a short exposure with an ND exposure)
Click to expand...

Exposure blending has its benefits inc. no colour casts to worry about, filter quality issues, reflections etc etc

I haven't used it too much for ND effect but have used it a lot for astrophotography.
But you would need to blend/stack a lot of images to get the effect of 10 or 13 stops ND filter.

I believe Olympus cameras offer this in camera and so did my old Sony cameras (when they supported playmemories apps).
It's just quicker, simpler and convenient to use decent/good ND filter(s)

Edit:
NDs also have other use like shooting fast primes wide open in day light. Though this doesn't seem to be a consideration in the OP.
 
Last edited:
nandbytes said:
But you would need to blend/stack a lot of images to get the effect of 10 or 13 stops ND filter.
Click to expand...
Depends on how slow of a SS you can achieve without a filter... and since you are potentially blurring a lot of the scene there's no harm in stopping waay down. But yeah, about 15 frames would probably be the minimum.
 
Just tried the K&F Nano-X ND32-512 in 77mm.

Advertised as having no 'black X' but there was massive horizontal dark banding on my 14mm FF so it's going straight back and I've just ordered a 3,6,10 set from Haida instead.
 
I've just reviewed a K&F variable ND. The issue of dark and light areas is always going to be a problem at the dark end with a wide angle lens, I think. I did try it with a 105mm focal length where it didn't do that kind of interference at all, but at 50mm and wider it showed up near the limit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top