Best all round Neutral Density filter to get?

[paulhillion]

I can only really afford to get one of these & I see there are x2, x4 & x8 types available. I'm guessing the x4 would be the wisest choise but I thought I'd ask here first. I'm buying it to use on my travels & I imagine it'd be used mostly for landscapes & waterfall scenes.

Thanks for any advice.

[Citizensmith]

I got a .4 and it gets a reasonable amount of use. However, I'm often wishing it was darker, and never wishing it was lighter. I think for me the .8 would have been a better choice.

If you want one for the slow water affect then darker is better. If you just want one for reducing the light levels some on a bright day then a lighter one (or a polariser) may be a better choice.

[weemannie]

I use the 3 stop Hoya ND and last week whilst on holiday I was photographing waterfalls and cataracts and really needed the extra stops.

If you have a polariser then this is equivalent to a 2 stop ND, which may serve your needs, but I'd still go for the 3 stop personally :)

[xstrio]

ive got an nd4 and dont find it that effective , i just ordered a nd8 so hope it will block out even more light , plus you can always stack them

[Raj]

I have a ND8. I struggle to get 1 sec exposure even with ND8 on a bright day, so I guess anything less than than may not be very effective.

[ed2day]

Unfortunately there's different ways of specing ND grads used by different companies. Such as .3,.6,.9... or 2x, 4x, 6x etc. You can see this in the answers above. I don't remember exactly the differences. But what I read is that for general purposes a two-stop grad is recommended and that means the same regardless of their notation. But some recommended a three-stop for digital cameras. I have a two-stop, but don't have enough experience with it to have an opinion yet.

[Raj]

You are right, its better to express in terms of stops. My ND8 is a three stop grad.