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ND filter, Bright Sun over the Ocean

Fletcher500

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2017
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Southern California
I used a Taco ND 16 (recommend for sunny days) for the first time today over the ocean at 10 am, fairly sunny day.

It could be my inexperience, but I wasn't overly impressed with the results. I actually found the unfiltered footage to be similar, if not better in some respects to the filtered video.

Should I try a lower rated, say 8?

How do the Taco filters stack up against other brands?

Any other feedback for ocean/sunny filming with filters is appreciated.
 
Depending on if you're shooting in manual mode, you want to get your shutter speed down closer to double your frame rate. IE;
24 FPS = shutter speed of 1/50
30 FPS = shutter speed of 1/60

The closer you can get to this the smoother the motion will look in your video. Moving water (the ocean) will have natural motion blur and so will moving vehicles. I would honestly recommend you trying an even darker ND filter. Like an ND32. If it was fairly sunny like you've said it is a Dark filter is a must.

Now with a filter or without a filter you can get extremely similar results just using a filter allows you to lower that shutter speed to get closer to a more "cinematic" feel to the video.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I also watched a couple you tube videos on the subject so I will play with the settings tomorrow.

After looking at the raw video again, I may have made an inadvertent adjustment to the exposure setting, so the video is very dark.
 
Related question, what is the best way to clean the filters and camera lense when flying in sea air environments?

I was thinking some type of cleaning solution as opposed to a dry pad?
 
Every camera shop and even Best Buy stores sell a lens cleaning solution and lens tissues specific for camera lenses. They're cheap and they work. If you can't get to a local camera store you can buy these online as well thru Almost and place that sells camera products.
 

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