In early May I ordered a set of these ND filters on Amazon. They took more than 2 months to arrive and it looks like I wasted my money. Here are two tests I conducted. Shouldn't I be seeing more of a difference?
ND Filters - no difference???
- Thread starter gymnast46
- Start date
THE CYBORG
Well-Known Member
ND filters shouldn’t make any difference to a photograph.
All they should do is block a certain amount of light reaching the sensor in the camera ( I say should because some can add an unwanted colour cast).
They simply allow you to use a slower shutter speed for a given aperture.
They are mainly used on drones so you can get twice the shutter speed over frame rate giving the desired motion blur.
All they should do is block a certain amount of light reaching the sensor in the camera ( I say should because some can add an unwanted colour cast).
They simply allow you to use a slower shutter speed for a given aperture.
They are mainly used on drones so you can get twice the shutter speed over frame rate giving the desired motion blur.
THE CYBORG
Well-Known Member
THE CYBORG
Well-Known Member
Don’t think we ever stop learning but that's part of the fun.
xboxmoddr
Member
ND filters do make a difference for still photos in some circumstances. Here is an example. I have ordered a ND1000 filter. Can't wait to test it out
lannes
Well-Known Member
You probably need to be in manual mode, as auto will adjust and correct the ND effect
THE CYBORG
Well-Known Member
It’s like I posted “They simply allow you to use a slower shutter speed for a given aperture.“
One picture was taken with a fast shutter speed to capture the ripples in the water, the other with a slow speed to soothe the water out.
A technique often used on things like waterfalls.
If you really want to get into the manual mode I made a little 3x5 reference card for tracking ISO, aperature, and shutter speed. Eventually you do this in your head but until you kind of grok what you're doing it helps to have a cheat sheet. Each step on the scale is a "stop" up or down, and since the MM's aperature is fixed at f/2.8 you can adjust ISO, shutter speed, and ND filter to achieve the video that you want or the still shot effect that you want (IE if you want a longer exposure for motion blur, you use a higher ND filter).
So if you're taking, say, 30 fps video and you want natural motion blur, your shutter speed is going to be 1/60th of a second. You want ISO at 100 for best picture quality. I believe auto mode will tell you shutter speed, otherwise you can get a basic light meter app for your phone that'll show you shutter speed for the light situation you're in. Let's say it's 1/500th of a second (a nice sunset). So you look at the f2.8 line and count backwards how many stops it takes to get from 1/500 to 1/60. In this case, it's 3 steps/stops. Look at your center guide, and you see that's an ND8 filter. Slap an ND8 onto your MM and set manual ISO 100 and 1/60th of a second for shutter speed and you'll have gorgeous, natural looking motion blur and exposure.
Sometimes you can't get perfect- 24 FPS doubled is 48, and there's no easy shutter speed, so play around with either a 1/30th shutter speed or a 1/60th and touch up in your editing software and see which you like best.
The back side of the card is a *super* simple Black & White patch for emergency color balancing. If you're going to do post, take a picture with your settings showing the back side of the card and that can be your white reference (as long as you print on white paper). Not as good as a professional grey card but it'll do in a pinch.
The card also works for a reference with drones with adjustable apertures. Changing aperture is just another stop that you count. So an ND2 filter is the equivalent of going from an f/2.8 down to f/2. Changing ISO is just another stop as well. ISO 100 to 200 is a 1 stop increase. Mixing and matching the 4 options here will let you nail great looking video and photographs.
So if you're taking, say, 30 fps video and you want natural motion blur, your shutter speed is going to be 1/60th of a second. You want ISO at 100 for best picture quality. I believe auto mode will tell you shutter speed, otherwise you can get a basic light meter app for your phone that'll show you shutter speed for the light situation you're in. Let's say it's 1/500th of a second (a nice sunset). So you look at the f2.8 line and count backwards how many stops it takes to get from 1/500 to 1/60. In this case, it's 3 steps/stops. Look at your center guide, and you see that's an ND8 filter. Slap an ND8 onto your MM and set manual ISO 100 and 1/60th of a second for shutter speed and you'll have gorgeous, natural looking motion blur and exposure.
Sometimes you can't get perfect- 24 FPS doubled is 48, and there's no easy shutter speed, so play around with either a 1/30th shutter speed or a 1/60th and touch up in your editing software and see which you like best.
The back side of the card is a *super* simple Black & White patch for emergency color balancing. If you're going to do post, take a picture with your settings showing the back side of the card and that can be your white reference (as long as you print on white paper). Not as good as a professional grey card but it'll do in a pinch.
The card also works for a reference with drones with adjustable apertures. Changing aperture is just another stop that you count. So an ND2 filter is the equivalent of going from an f/2.8 down to f/2. Changing ISO is just another stop as well. ISO 100 to 200 is a 1 stop increase. Mixing and matching the 4 options here will let you nail great looking video and photographs.
Thanks for sharing, both the information and the reference card. This is all new information to me. It just goes to show that it takes more than a good camera to take awesome shots!
MikeG
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