ND4 filter - any good?

bomberman

bomberman

Messages
1,149
Edit My Images
No
i asked my sister for a 10 stop ND filter and she bought me a 2 stop! At least i think it's a 2 stop....(ND4) :shrug:

I can't send it back as she had a hell of a time getting it with mixed-up orders etc. so i'll just be grateful.

does it have much use? I'm guessing it won't be much good for blurry seascapes and eerie lanscape type shots?
 
bomberman said:
i asked my sister for a 10 stop ND filter and she bought me a 2 stop! At least i think it's a 2 stop....(ND4) :shrug:

I can't send it back as she had a hell of a time getting it with mixed-up orders etc. so i'll just be grateful.

does it have much use? I'm guessing it won't be much good for blurry seascapes and eerie lanscape type shots?
Click to expand...

It can be useful yup, if you want to shoot at say f/2.8 on a bright day it could well help you to get the shot when you might otherwise still have an over exposed shot at 8000th/sec shutter speed and your lowest ISO selected. Unfortunately though, as you already suspected, it's unlikely to be much help for the blurry seascapes or eerie landscape shots compared to a 10 stop.
 
out of interest (and apologies if it seems like a thread hi-jack) i just bought 3 ND filters from ebay, these were dirt cheap direct from china and probably a marginal IQ improvement over a welding glass, but i got nd2,4,8


does the 2,4,8 represent stops?
 
nd2 is one stop, nd4 is 2 stops (2x2), nd8 is 3 stops (2x2x2), so effectively a 10stop is a ND1024 (2 to power of 10) ..... there was a really good detailed reply in a thread the other day which went into the technicalities of log no's eg log(8)/log(2) = 3 = 3 stops....

I'll see if I can find it.
 
In the meantime this may help....
 
here you go - orininally posted by "blapto" in June 2008.

Just a quicky involving maths!
A "1000x" filter reduces the incoming light to 1/1000th of it's original power.
Exposure values work in "stops" of light, which as you may know are exponential. Double the light = +1 to the EV.
Therefore we can use logarithms to work backwards. We want to do log_2, but most calculators have either a log_e or a log_10 button. To do log_2(x), we can do log(x)/log(2)

log(8)/log(2) = 3, so NDx8 takes 3 stops of light.
log(1000)/log(2) = 10, so NDx1000 takes away 10 stops of light.

Not meaning to teach anyone to suck eggs, but I've spoken to quite a few people recently who thought that NDx8 blocked 8 stops of light, or just worked out the relationship by testing it with their meter. It also helps if your in camera meter isn't accurate with the ND filter on. Just take the reading with it off, then apply the filter and set the exposure manually.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for that. I'm not surprised my sister didn't get a 72mm screw on 10-stop, just had a look on google, they're a bit thin on the ground
 
yep .. rocking horse poo comes to mind!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top