Hi everyone after some advice and tips on ND Filters.Currently have uv filters on all my lenses mostly as a safety barrier to protect my lenses. The reason i'm asking about ND filter as it was suggested to me as i had posted a pic of a waterfall i had took in daylight and to be honest i struggled with the settings and light of the day was thinking night time shooting lol not daytime and the light lol . Finally got a pic at f32 1/8 iso 200. I dont want to go out and buy loads of Nd filters . would like some advice and tips and help on them . do i just get one colour filter do i just keep it on when its sunny do i just use it for one type of photography.
I use ND filters at times. I have got both the screw in type and the square filter type. The first type I brought were the screw in type. I can't remember the last time I used them. My go to are now the square type. I have a nisi brand kit which everything comes in a box, and everything has it's place in the box. That helps. I just grab the box and I know everything is there. It includes a 6 and a 10 stop ND filters, a grad ND, and a polarizing filter. Plus various filter thread adapters. I prefer this sort of filter. The 10 stop filter works well in bright mid day sunlight, and the 6 stop filter comes in when the light level is a little lower. The system screws into the front filter thread, so you need a well made lens to screw it onto. As it comes with different size thread adapters, there is a good chance that it will fit a lens that you buy in the future. Gary
John, usually we have more than one lens, I agree with Gary's advice but would like to add, look at your largest filter thread size and buy a ND filter to fit it, then buy a few cheap reducer rings so you can us it or them on the remaining lenses.This will cut down your costs.
No worries about asking questions. I am making an assumption that you are trying to get milky smooth water on the waterfall on a bright sunny day, and you can't get a slow enough shutter speed. Please correct me if I am wrong. ND filters come in different stops. So you can get 2 stop, 3 stop, 6 stop, 10 stop, 15 stop (I think), as well as variable. I have no experience with these. To answer your question, I want to take a step backwards, and explain what a stop is first. If you already know this, sorry. I'll try and keep this easy to understand. A stop is of light is when you double or halve the light value from your exposure. A stop can be split into halves, as well as thirds, but we are not going to worry about that for now. If you take an image at a shutter speed of 1/250 of a second. To increase the exposure by one stop, you would change the shutter speed to 1/125 of a second. To decrease the exposure by one stop, you would change the shutter speed to 1/500 of a second. You can do the same changes using the aperture. Say you exposed an image at f5.6. To increase the aperture by one stop, you would open the aperture to f4. To decrease the exposure by one stop, you would close the aperture to f8. With ISO, you can do the same. If you are shooting at ISO 200. To increase the exposure by one stop, you would change the ISO to ISO 400. To decrease the exposure by one stop, you would change the ISO to ISO 100. Lets go back to your waterfall settings. Aperture of f32, shutter speed of 1/8 of a second, and ISO 200. If we were to put a 6 stop ND filter on the front of your lens, just after you took your shot, and if we only changed the shutter speed by 6 stop to compensate for the ND filter, the new required shutter speed would be 8 seconds. How did I get to that? The filter reduces the light brightness by 6 stops, so we need to lengthen the exposure by 6 stops to compensate. 1/8 to 1/4 of a second is one stop. 1/4 to 1/2 of a second is another stop (two stops in total), 1/2 to 1 second is another stop (three stops in total), 1 to 2 seconds is another stop (four stops in total), 2 to 4 seconds (five stops in total), 4 to 8 seconds is another stop (6 stops in total). If we were to put a 10 stop ND filter on the front of your lens, we need a 120 second exposure to compensate. We would carry on from the 6 stop filter. 8 to 15 seconds is another stop (seven stops in total), 15 to 30 seconds is another stop (eight stops in total), 30 to 60 seconds is another stop (nine stops in total), 60 to 120 seconds is another stop (10 stops in total). To use the filters in real life. Out comes the tripod, the camera gets set to the 2 second mirror lock up. I compose with no filter, I focus with no filter, and in manual, not AF. I see what the exposure settings are with no filter, then do some mental math's and set the settings in manual. Attach the filter. I shade the viewfinder with my hand, so no stray light enters the viewfinder. Take the image, review it, and maybe change the exposure to suit. I brought a filter kit when I was living in Australia. I found that when I used it over there in the bright daylight, I tended to use the 10 stop filter most of the time. It's bright and sunny where I was living. But when I moved back to NZ, I have used the 6 stop filter more. The reason is that I have only taken a few waterfall images, and these tend to be in shaded forest where it is not as bright. Hopefully this helps. Gary
Just one other thing. As a little bit of advice, try and not shoot at an aperture of f32 if you can help it. Try and make f11 your maximum. The reason for saying this is that when you use a really small aperture, you start to run into diffraction. The result of diffraction is the softening of your images. Gary
There are a number of ways to handle this, I would suggest a circular polarizer in your most common thread size(s), this will darken the seen a some and allow you to take reflections out of glass and water and will saturate the blue in the sky. Many times the CPL will do the trick. I saw color mentioned, I would recommend buying quality CPLs and NDs that do not have a color cast as it will be easier on you in post processing. I recommend B+W filters if your buying screw on ones. For scenes where you really want to slow down the shutter like a waterfall you want a ND filter for sure. You can buy screw on ones, and they even make one where it is variable to adjust the darkness as needed. Honestly here is where I bought into the Lee system. You get a thread ring and holder and can buy whatever filter you need. Its a bit larger of an investment but can be mounted to any lens and allows much more flexibility.
Two excellent images demonstrating slow shutter speed and neutral density filter use, Gary. I hope you don't mind I grabbed a copy of both to use in my class tomorrow.
Thanks Craig. No worries about grabbing a copy. Adding a little more information, the first image is under the jetty at Carnarvon in WA. The second is at the Devil's Punchbowl at Arthur's Pass early morning with some fog. Pre Canon days. Pentax K3, Sigma 18-35 Art, nisi filter. Gary
hi gary thanks for the reply . got to admit at present it went in one ear and straight out the other as i was thinking omg ive got so much to learn, but i appreciate your reply and will look back on it for advice and help many thanks
John, I shall try to simplify it for you by giving two explanations. a very short one and the second a bit more indepth. 1. put the camera in manual mode and focus and using the light meter set ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Place the 10 stop filter on and set you shutter 10 stops slower. take the shot, using a shutter release cable or wireless. 2. Lets say you have a 10 stop neutral density filter it allows you to slow you shutter speed down 10 stops of light. Focus the canera ion the scene. Now if you want a fast flowing water fall to look misty or water washing onto the beach to look like glass, etc. you need a very slow shutter speed,To achieve this, Put you camera in Manual mode. put your ISO to it's lowest setting. place your aperture to F16. look at your light meter in you viewfinder or the live view screen and rotate the jog wheel to set your shutter speed so it is just past the zero mark on the light meter. This will will give you the correct amount of light for the image. Now place the 10 stop filter on the lens and turn the jog wheel which controls the shutter speed, turn this 10 clicks to get the slower shutter speed. now I suggest you use a shutter cable release or go into your settings and use either 10 second or if available 2 second delay. 3. Just put the filter on and have a play with it. sometimes this is the best way to learn and then re-look at this other stuff. Still too much. go onto YouTube there are some excellent clips there explaining it so let me know if I can help .
Don't feel bad about it. Just go for plan b. Grab a 6 stop ND filter and go out and play with it. Sometimes the theory is hard to understand but the practical is a lot easier. Yell out if you need some more help. Gary
just been looking at nd filters, i do like the lee drop ins but they are a bit pricey when you want a few of them, was thinking i might take a glass cutter to a few old laminated tinted windshields
I am not sure if you have ever seen this as an idea......... https://www.diyphotography.net/use-welding-glass-as-10-stops-nd-filter/ Gary
Lee filters are the pro level ones and it reflects in the price, I use cheap ones off of Ebay from china and have very nice results, I have used them for quite a few years.
yep i have used welding glass to view eclipse, i have quite a few of them, i'll have to see, you can get different strengths too. i've also seen a few vids of people using tinted filter sheets.
The last time I took a image and did not have a ND filter, I used a pair of sunglasses, just held them in place.
With regards to grad filters, what are peoples thoughts on using bracketing instead of the grad filters? i normally prefer to do stuff in camera but considering the cost and fact not every horizon will have a straight line, ie mountainous or foreground protrusions above the grad line i was wondering how many of you use long exp bracketing vs grads etc. As for the welding glass the ones i have for mig welding have a heavy green tint to them
I have found the same thing, but if you were to convert the image to black and white, you might be able to get away with it.
