home brewer Loc: Fort Wayne, Indiana

Has any one used one and were the results good? I met a man that had one on a lens on his canon camera. He liked it a lot.
When would I use one?

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

When you are shooting a scene with a dark foreground and a bright sky, or when you are shooting moving water and want to achieve that silky look.

Be warned that some adjustable ND filters produce an "X" in the image:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4273117

For this reason, I only use Lee or Breakthrough rectangular filters.

Strodav Loc: Houston, Tx

Lee filters are expensive, but well worth it.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

1. Not a variable, I have a graduated one and also fixed ND amounts (3 filters).
2. N/A
3. When you want to reduce the amount of light entering the camera, so you can use a slower shutter speed to blur water (falls), etc.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

No. Variable ND are all pretty bad, especially if there is some sky in the shot and you are using a wider lens. The effect is not uniform across the frame.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

I purchased the Tiffen variable some time ago and after three uses bought the Lee rectangular system.

Yes you can get the X effect and it had a slight colour cast which could be removed in post but my biggest concern that it was rather hit and miss with settings. I often work with seascapes and can be in areas that are tidal so the ability to get to where I'm shooting and back quickly without having to re-shoot is an asset.

home brewer Loc: Fort Wayne, Indiana

I wondered about the Tiffen quality and complexity. I have been shooting in places where I go from well lit, to shade, to little of each and was wondering if there was a easy way to get round the shadows and overblown sky or buildings. Although I have had the d500 for some time I am still learning how to use all the settings.
I am jealous of how good a job my wife's IPhone x does with wide dynamic range shots. I am on vacation and am not using Lightroom or PS to post process.
Thanks to all for the input

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

It is a good and inexpensive way to start. You have to watch your exposures as some variable ND filters do not come with an exposure guide.
As you get into that you may want to switch to more standard fixed ND filters.

mizzee Loc: Boston,Ma

I had one that was inexpensive, don’t remember the brand. I used it once and returned it. Moisture got in between the elements and wouldn’t leave.

cameraf4 Loc: Delaware

Lee ND Grad filters are very good. Mostly, when I use these filters, I use the ones made by Bob Singh (Singh Ray). Yes, they are expensive, too.

tropics68 Loc: Georgia

Are we discussing a variable or a graduated ND filter? I guess I am a little confused. Not unusual for me.

Chuckwal Loc: Boynton Beach Florida

Use nd 2 alto esp sunrise and set
chuck

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Tiffen Variable ND filters are junk. They're among the cheapest filters of that type (still more expensive than other types of filters at around $100, depending upon size), uncoated and lower quality throughout. They'll add ugly tints to your images and will give uneven effects in lot of situations. To make matters worse, since the Tiffen Variable ND doesn't have multi-coatings, in many lighting conditions you may see flare and other issues in images.

QUALITY Variable ND filters with multi-coatings are expensive. Depending upon size, it's not uncommon for them to cost $300 or $400 or more.

Even the expensive ones aren't entirely free of some of the "issues", such as uneven effects.

Neutral Density are specialty filters (both types: Variable and non-variable). They're used to reduce the light reaching the sensor, when you want to use an extra slow shutter speed and/or an unusually large lens aperture in lighting conditions where the exposure adjustments of the camera just aren't sufficient. Long exposures are used to cause deliberate motion blur, such as making moving water look "creamy". Large apertures are used to render very shallow depth of field effects.

For still photography, Variable ND - which commonly cover a range from approx. 2 to around 8 or ten stops - aren't really aren't necessary.

Most still photography techniques that require a Neutral Density filter can be done with one less expensive, but higher quality, multi-coated, non-variable ND filter around 6 stops. Or, at most one might get a pair of non-variable filters, such as a 3-stop and a 6-stop. That gives the have option of 3, 6 or 9 stops (the last done by stacking the two filters) of light reduction and would cover virtually all specialty situations for still photography. The other camera adjustments for ISO, shutter speed and lens aperture can be used to fine tune exposure.

Variable ND are more useful for video, where there's less adjustability of exposure available with the camera's controls. A large number of non-variable filters would be necessary, so a Variable ND might be more practical. But a set of non-variable ND in a bunch of different strengths, used individually and swapped out as needed, will still usually make for better video quality.

All the above are Neutral Density filters... Variable and non-variable types.

There are also Graduated Neutral Density filters. Those are half clear, half gray to block part of a scene. Back in the days of film, these were used in 1, 2 and maybe 3 stop strengths to help balance the sky in scenic shots. But with digital they're largely unnecessary. Today with digital we can simply take two shots with different exposure settings and later combine them in post-processing. Or, with a RAW file it's often even possible to take one image and double process it, tweaking one for the sky and the other for the rest of the scene, then combining the "correct" portion from each into a single image. These digital techniques are far more accurate and controllable than was ever possible with Graduated ND filters.

My "most used" filter, by far, is a Circular Polarizer. With digital, a C-Pol is one of the few filters that can't be emulated very well in post-processing or with the camera's white balance settings. Even so, I probably only use a C-Pol around 15 or 20% of the time.

I've only very rarely used an ND filter. Way less than 1% of the time. I think I now only have an ND to fit one or two lenses, since their special effects are pretty specialized and not techniques I need to use very often.

Just in case, I also carry, but very rarely install UV/Protection filters... . Also probably only need them 1% of the time or less, such as when I'm shooting near the ocean and want to keep salt spray off my lenses. Digital doesn't really require UV filtration.... but the nearly clear filters serve instead to protect the lens, perhaps from blowing grit out in a sand storm (if I'm dumb enough to try to keep shooting!)

And I completely stopped using my Graduated ND filters years ago, soon as I learned to achieve better effects in digital post-processing than was ever possible with the filters and film.

Most of the time, I have no filter on my lenses.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

I like to use vari - ND's, but I rather use a good filter and stay away from Tiffen, and to the above, I have used vari- ND's on movie cameras as well, there is just as much adjustable parameters for exposures, as there is in still photography. You set the ISO, (film speed) set aperture and shutter speed (besides frame rates) as you normally would!!