Possible Bargain 10 Stopper

danny_bhoy

danny_bhoy

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I just couldn't justify spending big on any more filters (every spare penny is going on wedding related gubbins at the minute). I was recommended this 10 Stopper by a very good photographer in a local Facebook group. Apparently it imparts very little colour cast and is multi-coated so is nice and resistant to grime.

Mine just arrived today so I'll give it a whirl when I get the chance and post the results.

Can't go wrong for the same price as a few bits of welding glass! :)
 
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ancient_mariner said:
SRB are very good value for a 10 stopper that gives no colour cast at all.
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I did look at those briefly. I've always usded Haida filters in the past and have been really impressed. I think I was dazzled by the price difference between the £50 Haida filter and the one I've just bought for a tenner. Let's see if the old addage 'you get what you pay for' is true eh.

Although the guy who recommended it is top notch so it's going to be an interesting little experiment.
 
Am interested too:)
Have googled but not much info around they must be new out
I only occasionally do long exposure shots so if this filter doesn't have too much of a colour cast will get it
Did find a couple of reviews on Amazon for the nd filter set of 3 and a couple of people found that the filter gave soft images
Can always correct a bit of a colour cast but probably not worth it if it affects sharpness
 
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LCPete said:
Am interested too:)
Have googled but not much info around they must be new out
I only occasionally do long exposure shots so if this filter doesn't have too much of a colour cast will get it
Did find a couple of reviews on Amazon for the nd filter set of 3 and a couple of people found that the filter gave soft images
Can always correct a bit of a colour cast but probably not worth it if it affects sharpness
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That's what will probably let it down - poor glass. Like you say, a bit of a colour cast can be corrected.

The images that the guy who suggested it posted on Facebook looked ok sharpness wise but with facebooks nasty compression of images it's hard to say.

Fingers crossed for no rain tomorrow and I'll get out for some tests.
 
Got out for an hour or so this morning before the rain set in.

Not the best conditions and slightly under-exposed by yours truly but all in all I'm reasonably happy with this. The cast is obviously quite cool but not horrific - should polish up nicely.

This is SOOC, no grad filter was used so as not to impart any additional possible colour cast.

f13, ISO 50, 260 Seconds.

10 Stopper Test by Danny Birrell, on Flickr
 
One day i am going to buy that adapter which has built in Vari ND up to 10 stops then most of my filters will be sold, i don't use those round or circle filters anymore, i only go with square/rectangular filters nowadays since a while.

Sounds you've got a cracker filter, nice image and i don't see much of color cast except it is cooler maybe [blue cats slightly]
 
Thanks for doing the test Danny it does look good
think I'll give it a go myself I only do landscapes occasionally so it it be perfect:)
 
Mine just arrived! Weather rather too windy and wet to do a good test so I contented myself with photographing an indoors sideboard with the stopper off at f8 ISO 100 and 0.6 sec, and then with the stopper on at 10 minutes. Unfortunately the main source of light, the kitchen window, darkened a lot during those ten minutes so the 10 stop image was underexposed. I lifted it for comparison purposes, so it has quite visible noise where the unstopped image has none, and both images are AWB jpegs so the colour looks very similar. Doing some checks without AWB it's clear the slightly cool colour cast of the stopper is mild, and a lot less than the casts I'm used to seeing in reviews of much more expensive stoppers. The contrast is a bit lower, and the image is slightly softer, but it's hard to find anywhere in the image where that has led to loss of detail rather than just a bit less contrast on the contrast edges.

So all in all I think it remarkably good value for money! I suspect a new technology.

Here's the two images, first without the stopper, the next with.

16013572415_e4d2a8878d_h.jpg


16013572415_e4d2a8878d_h.jpg


I'm not yet sure how to get the much larger original size images up into these threads. I know the gallery won't support them.
 
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Bought myself a 77mm version of this and it arrived today. I had a quick go with it over lunch and it seems alright so far :D
 
Phil Young said:
There are bargains to be had out there indeed...

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/index.php?threads/520613/
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Looking at that old discussion thread it seems to be talking about the same kind of peculiarly good and peculiarly cheap big stopper under different brand names. Weird that it seems to have been around for at least several months, possibly a year or two, without attracting more notice. There are several better known big stoppers out there which going by the reviews are a lot more expensive and not nearly as good.
 
The problem is, there's a lot of ignorance out there and advice about only expensive filters being good...

As we found out, the camdiox in my case, at wide to normal focal lengths, is fantastic by anyone's standards.
 
Phil Young said:
The problem is, there's a lot of ignorance out there and advice about only expensive filters being good...

As we found out, the camdiox in my case, at wide to normal focal lengths, is fantastic by anyone's standards.
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Yeah I bookmarked the Camdiox stuff when I last saw it but these Xcsource ones were too cheap to resist lol :)

Now that I've seen that this one is like (77mm for my 10-22mm) then I might try the Camdiox 72mm for my 18-35mm Sigma lens

Also tempted to try something more than 10 stop
 
First proper test with this today. This one is the 77mm version that fits on my 10-22mm and it did alright :) Starts to vignette a lot with longer exposures but I don't know if that's normal for these kinds of filters since this is my first (did a few between 30 and 60 seconds). Here I removed as much vignetting as possible before cropping and then I ended up adding a bit back in (go figure lol)


Longsun by Phal44, on Flickr
 
I I'm've ordered a 67 and 77mm ten stopper
£20 for both including post :)
Thanks Danny:)
 
I was so impressed by the performance of the first one I got -- the indoor welsh dresser photos above -- that I ordered another the same size so I can stack them together. I estimate that if I want to make daylight street shots at long enough exposures to clear traffic & pedestrians, i.e. at least several minutes, I'll need two of them. With a set of step up rings 77mm fits on all my landscape lenses.

Now all I have to wait for is good long exposure weather...
 
I've just found this interesting thread, so where is it best to buy these Camdiox filters from please ? Can it be used with a Lee 100 system filter holder, or is it the screw type etc?

I'll be using it with my Fuji X-Pro 1 system etc...

Regards;
Peter
 
Steve Smith said:
I can't think of any reason why the exposure time would affect this.


Steve.
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Hmmm maybe it was a combination of the filter plus a smaller aperture? I was trying to get the exposure as long as possible so I closed down to F13
 
macvisual said:
I've just found this interesting thread, so where is it best to buy these Camdiox filters from please ? Can it be used with a Lee 100 system filter holder, or is it the screw type etc?

I'll be using it with my Fuji X-Pro 1 system etc...

Regards;
Peter
Click to expand...

The filter mentioned originally is an Xcsource filter and not Camdiox but both seem to be good quality cheap filters :) They're screw in filters so you don't need a holder but you do need separate filters or adapters to use on different sized lenses.
 
Phal said:
The filter mentioned originally is an Xcsource filter and not Camdiox but both seem to be good quality cheap filters :) They're screw in filters so you don't need a holder but you do need separate filters or adapters to use on different sized lenses.
Click to expand...

Ok, thanks for that info, appreciated!
 
Heres the XCSource 10 stop big stopper tried out in public as a way of making people disappear. It shows no discernible colour cast, although there's always a problem with changing light in long exposures. There was seven minutes between the first 1/6th second exposure and the second one minute (64 secs) exposure and the sun was low, about an hour off sunset.

First is a shot at ISO 50, f8, and 1/6th second showing a pretty constant stream of people visiting the Castle, some of them stopping to admire a view or chat.

15522968353_9ac261a179_k.jpg


Next is the same shot with stopper on, ISO 50, f8, and 64 seconds -- that underexposed it by about a stop and a half, which I recovered by boosting it back in post processing from RAW. It was very cold (yes, that's frost on the top of the wall!), and I didn't have the patience to wait round for a perfectly exposed shot. A reasonably good quick result was enough for a test.

15522969383_c56b388e1a_k.jpg


Both images had white balance set to "shady" in post processing, which shows that there's little if any colour cast. 64 seconds divided by 1/6 second mutiplied by 2^1.5 = 1086, close enough for experimental error to the 1024 of a 10 stop. In other words, this looks close enough to a 10 stop for government work -- which not all advertised 10 stop filters are.

I'll have to wait for a bright sunny to try out a stacked pair of them!
 
I've ordered one of these nd stoppers myself & it will be my first one. I've seen some nice photos taken with these on a fb group & I'm sure that it will let me take my first steps in using & learning about nd photography.
 
A few more taken with this filter :) think I need to get one for my Sigma 18-35mm.

Perhaps not the best examples to show off the filter since these have been processed a fair amount but at least you can see shots taken with them :)


Crackling Sky by Phal44, on Flickr

Sunset Bars by Phal44, on Flickr
 
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