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

You are going to get a LOT of advise. Tiffen makes very good quality glass at a good price point.

repleo Loc: Boston

I too am a budget conscious relative beginner (to digital photography). If you just want something to experiment with, you might try a variable ND Fader from Ritz Gear - $35 - $40 on Amazon. These are screw on rotating filters so you can open them up to focus and then rotate the outer ring to the required ND strength up to ND 2000 – just like a circular polarizer. There are cheaper ones, but the Ritz Gear ones are made from the famed Schott glass and feel well made. You might get some cross banding at the highest settings, but they are worth a try. Get the largest size you might ever need and some step rings to bring it down to your lens sizes.
If you are trying to achieve that smooth water look, you can also try ‘stacking’ without a filter. It involves taking multiple exposures and ‘stacking’ them in post processing. I won’t try to explain how because I don’t know much about it yet. I have the ‘Smooth Reflections’ app on my Sony A6000 and it does a great job of smoothing water, waterfalls, waves etc. Its basically an in-camera stacking app. Better than the ND filter. I think it only outputs in JPEG, but it does a nice job and is very easy to use with no focusing problems or problems with having a sub-par piece of glass over your lens.
A graduated ND filter is also nice for bringing out color in skies etc. The Sony has an App for that too!

Mark7829 Loc: Calfornia

Can't be better than an ND if it outputs only to jpeg...Real Photographers shoot RAW

SteveR Loc: Michigan

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Jul 6, 13 09:31:05
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Feb 25, 14 08:49:30
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Main Photography Discussion Square ND Filter Holders and Adapters mdorn
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Main Photography Discussion Circular Graduated rotating ND filter Bear2
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Photography Forum -> Search

repleo Loc: Boston

I thought real Photographers shoot film ..... 4X5 or 8x10

SteveR Loc: Michigan

Call me unreal...with a bunch of 3x5 and 4x6 photos of my kids growing up. Film, ofc, but it cost about fifty cents per shot....even back in the seventies and eighties. There were rolls that never got developed because I didn't have the ten bucks to do it back then. Thank goodness my daughter, who doesn't have any more money than I did at that age, shoots digital!!!

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Is there a reason for staying away from screw in ND filters?
--Bob

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Huh?????
--Bob

redrocktom Loc: Sedona

They are stackable with this system. In fact you need one of their rings for your lens cap so that it will attach magnetically to the adapter already placed on your lens, or to a filter in place. Very convenient system, I love mine.

Szalajj Loc: Salem, NH

Sorry to burst your bubble, but even adjusting in manual, you will often end up with blow outs without an ND filter.

I have spent a lot of time trying to shoot a particular waterfall, and adjusting my settings to work around the whites in the shot, and it just wasn't going to happen.

After consulting with my mentor, a published professional photographer, she suggested that an ND filter would be needed. She even went so far as to try to make PP adjustments to my shots, but nothing worked, because the details just weren't there, they had been blown out in the shot.

I was advised that without an ND filter, to change the position I was shooting from, and eliminate the foam at the base of the falls. It was a compromise, and I ended up with beautiful reflections on the water surface above the falls. But, I lost the cotton candy effect of the flowing water below the falls.

And, yes, I shoot in both RAW & JPEG, so if it could be PP'd, I had the RAW file to work with, but the details just weren't there.

Whites are the hardest color to shoot, and retain the details. Foaming water and white birds need to be substantially underexposed to attempt to get the details in the foam or feathers, and this often results in the rest of the shot ending up too dark. Now you have to be creative in PP and work in layers to lighten the background, but retain the details in the white areas.

Using a graduated ND filter to start with, would help to balance the exposure. It is part of the learning curve, understanding when it might be advantageous to use an ND filter.

Try the shot without the filter, but you will often find that for flowing or foaming water and white birds, you might just need that ND filter.

Don't be afraid to experiment with filters.

I agree that if you do decide to purchase a system, that it should be a bracket style system that you can slide a single, or be able to stack 2 filters into the bracket, rather than a single filter that screws onto the front of your lens after you focus your shot, because you could alter your focus in the process of screwing the filter onto your lens.

Szalajj Loc: Salem, NH

Magnets and electronics are not always a good combination.

Have there been any problems with the magnets adversely effecting the electronics in any lenses or cameras?

Don't forget that you will be carrying the magnetic filters in your camera bag, so their proximity to your equipment would be multiplied by the amount of time that the filters spend near the rest of your equipment and your spare SD cards. How much risk of damage is there?

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

There are actually two different types of ND filters. One type is typically used for landscapes and another type is what's commonly used for waterfalls.

Neutral Density filters are evenly gray all over and used to allow slower shutter speeds. A common use of these is to allow slower shutter speeds that will blur flowing or moving water. They also can be used to allow larger apertures for shallow depth of field effects in brighter lighting conditions, such as for portraits. Typical strength of ND needed for these purposes is 4 or 6 stops or more... some are as strong as 10 or more stops. These are available both in round, screw-in type and in square or rectangular type that slide into a holder that's screwed into the lens.

Graduated ND filters are half gray and half clear and are used mostly for landscape shots, to balance the brightness of the sky with the rest of the scene. Typically one and two stop strengths are used, occasionally three stop. There are also soft, medium and hard transition... the softer ones are more needed with wider lenses and the hard with telephotos. (Note: Much landscape photography is done with normal to wide lenses... Though certainly usable, telephotos are less commonly used and might be considered a specialty type lens for landscape.) Graduated ND are available as round screw-in, but there's a problem with those... They position the transition line directly across the center of the image area, so dictate where you position the horizon in every shot. The rectangular type that slide into a filter holder are a better choice because they can be adjusted to match your composition by rotating them or sliding them up or down slightly.

Many of the recommendations mentioned are Cokin, Lee, and other brands that are the square/rectangular type. These come in various sizes ranging from Cokin A and P series to 100mm and 150mm. Nearly all are made of optical plastic and none are multi-coated. In addition to the filter, a filter holder and adapter to be able to mount that to the lens need to be purchased. The lens' matched hood will no longer be usable, so in some cases a special type of hood is available for use with the filter holder, too.

The screw-in type filters are sold in exact sizes to fit the particular lens (check what size needed for your lens), are made of glass and better quality ones are are typically multi-coated. They allow the lens' matched lens hood to be used normally. High quality, multi-coated screw-in filters are available from B+W, Hoya and some others.

Some lenses such as Nikon 14-24mm, Canon 11-24mm, Canon 17/4 Tilt Shift and others have strongly protruding front lens elements that don't provide any means of installing a screw-in filter. In some cases special filter mounts are made to fit these lenses that allow the use of the square and rectangular type.

I have some of each type: a set of rectangular Graduated ND and a couple round, screw-in type standard ND.

I no longer use the rectangular Graduated ND. I bought them many years ago and used them with film cameras. But now I find I can do a far better job balancing digital images in post-processing, than was ever possible with the filters. For one, I nearly never have a straight horizon line that perfectly matches the graduated filter. Also, the optical plastic can be pretty easily damaged and the rectangular filter, holder and lens hood are rather bulky. They also aren't multi-coated and are difficult to shade well from oblique light, making for flare issues and added loss of image quality at times. So my Graduated ND have been largely gathering dust for a couple years now.

Rather than ND Grads, to me it makes more sense and works a lot better to take two or three shots (with stationary subjects) or to double or triple process a single image (with moving subjects), each using different exposure settings to accommodate different portions of the image... Then combine the "correct" portion from each into a single image. This is pretty easily done with many image editing software programs... Either manually with layers and masks, or in some cases using an automated HDR (high dynamic range) merge. In some cases, the post-processing method works for shots that would have been completely impossible with ND Grads. But at the very least the results are usually more accurate and better than was ever possible with the filters.

However, some people prefer to work with the Graduated ND filters. If you go that route and want standard ND too, it would make some sense to buy square type of those, too... to use the same system for both types of filter.

On the other hand, if you really only want the standard type of ND, that's gray all over and is used to make possible slower shutter speeds and/or larger apertures than can be done without the filter... I'd recommend the screw-in type instead. They can be higher performance, more easily used, and more compact for ease of storage.

When using the Graduated ND you have to be a little careful about your exposure settings. The camera's through-the-lens (TTL) metering system is effected by the filter. Because this type filter is usually only 1 or 2 stops, it usually doesn't effect focus and that's easily done with the filter in place.

When using the standard ND filter, gray all over, auto exposure and the camera's TTL meter are more reliable. However, stronger filters of this type can reduce light so much that autofocus no longer works and manual focusing becomes difficult because the viewfinder is dimmed down. (Note: Many digital cameras have some form of Live View that can give Exposure Simulation, which will effectively brighten the preview of the image and make it easier to compose and focus manually.)

Note: There are also Variable ND filters.... These are gray all over, but change strength when rotated, similar to a Circular Polarizer, and are only available as screw-in type. For still photography they are less necessary. More affordable Variable ND tend to have some problems... they commonly give an uneven effect (some call it the "Iron Cross", tends to be be worse with wider lenses) as well as causing color tints. There are better quality variables that have fewer issues, but still aren't perfect adn tend to be very expensive. For videography, where fine control using different filter strength might be necessary, a Variable ND is an alternative to having to buy a whole bunch of different strength standard ND. But for still photography most people really only need one or two of the fixed strength type and the variable type are less necessary.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Not if one knows what they're doing and meters the scene properly.
--Bob

redrocktom Loc: Sedona

According to the manufacturer, none. I and others that I know have been using the Xume system for over a year, with cards and obviously camera in close proximity with no problems. Highly recommended.