So I just bought a 10 - 22...

Now, I'm eventually looking at having a go at long exposures in the day time with it...and understand I'd need an ND filter? Can anyone point me along the lines of what I should be looking for? I.e. quality, what extra stops and all that sort of stuff please? Thanks!

If you're only just starting to buy filters and haven't invested in screw ins yet, I'd recommend getting a Lee foundation kit. That will let you stack filters later on without vignetting.

You can get them from www.teamworkphoto.com or www.studiokitdirect.co​.uk

I've used both, they're great stores.
Get yourself the holder and a 77mm WA adapter ring.

Then as for the filters themselves, if you do decide to go square, stick with Lee as they will have less colour cast.

If you decide to go screw in anyway, make sure you get slim, and go for B+W, lightcraftworkshop or Hoya.

A good one to start with is a 3-stop filter, or 0.9 ND as it is also labelled. That won't really let you get very long exposures in daytime, but its quite versatile. Alternatively, if you really want to go for >10s exposures in daylight, you'll have to go for the stronger 10 stop filters (either Lee big stopper, hitech pro stop, or B+W's 10 stop, then there's Hoya and LCW's 9 stop filters which are cheaper but 1 stop less). You can also get variable ND filters, which let you dial in the amount of density you want. They don't work well with wide angles however, as they will produce a very noticeable X pattern across the image at higher densities.

Excellent advice there from Tom. If you're really strapped for cash then you may want to consider a Haida 10-Stop ND from Ebay. Lots of people on Talk Photography have been saying good things about them. I've just got one delivered, but haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

Thanks Frank, I had no idea about the Haida. I think I'm going to give it a try myself! I've been looking for a decently priced solution to go 10-stop.

Well, I was inspired to stop eating chocolate for a few moments and brave the arctic wind to check it out. Here's some crops of the embedded jpegs for - unfiltered, Haida 10-stop and Heliopan 10-stop

Sirrith wrote in post #15777785
If you're only just starting to buy filters and haven't invested in screw ins yet, I'd recommend getting a Lee foundation kit. That will let you stack filters later on without vignetting.

You can get them from www.teamworkphoto.com or www.studiokitdirect.co​.uk

I've used both, they're great stores.
Get yourself the holder and a 77mm WA adapter ring.

Then as for the filters themselves, if you do decide to go square, stick with Lee as they will have less colour cast.

If you decide to go screw in anyway, make sure you get slim, and go for B+W, lightcraftworkshop or Hoya.

A good one to start with is a 3-stop filter, or 0.9 ND as it is also labelled. That won't really let you get very long exposures in daytime, but its quite versatile. Alternatively, if you really want to go for >10s exposures in daylight, you'll have to go for the stronger 10 stop filters (either Lee big stopper, hitech pro stop, or B+W's 10 stop, then there's Hoya and LCW's 9 stop filters which are cheaper but 1 stop less). You can also get variable ND filters, which let you dial in the amount of density you want. They don't work well with wide angles however, as they will produce a very noticeable X pattern across the image at higher densities.

Thanks pal, that was all really useful. is this about the cheapest I can go to get a full range of extra stops? It's still quite expensive to be honest. If I were to just go straight to a Hoya 10 stop, would that eliminate the ability to do exposures of 10 seconds or less? Just trying to work out the best option really.

Brelly wrote in post #15779070
Thanks pal, that was all really useful. is this about the cheapest I can go to get a full range of extra stops? It's still quite expensive to be honest. If I were to just go straight to a Hoya 10 stop, would that eliminate the ability to do exposures of 10 seconds or less? Just trying to work out the best option really.

The Hoya (ND400) is a 9-stop ND filter.

Will it eliminate the ability to do exposures of 10s or less? It all depends on the available light. You can always open up the aperture more or increase the ISO to shorten your exposure. If you are shooting in the mid-day sun, it would probably be harder to get exposures longer than 10s than shorter.

I have the Hoya myself and I love it. The only gripe I have about it is that it is harder to clean. If I were buying one again today, I would get the B+W one.

Brelly wrote in post #15779070
If I were to just go straight to a Hoya 10 stop, would that eliminate the ability to do exposures of 10 seconds or less? Just trying to work out the best option really.

It just depends on the lighting. On a very bright sunny day, you should easily be able to get faster than 10s shutter speed with a 10 stop ND. This is part of the reason variable NDs are useful; they let you choose how much ND you want according to the occasion, and it is cheaper/more convenient than owning 5 different ND filters. The problem is that X pattern.

What exactly do you want to be taking photos of with the filter?

tagnal wrote in post #15780704
The Hoya (ND400) is a 9-stop ND filter.

Will it eliminate the ability to do exposures of 10s or less? It all depends on the available light. You can always open up the aperture more or increase the ISO to shorten your exposure. If you are shooting in the mid-day sun, it would probably be harder to get exposures longer than 10s than shorter.

I have the Hoya myself and I love it. The only gripe I have about it is that it is harder to clean. If I were buying one again today, I would get the B+W one.

Oh right yeah of course, I suppose I could open up the aperture, I suppose either way it's a fairly deep learning curve in knowing what I'll ned for each shot, isn't it. Oh right, how come it's harder to clean?

Sirrith wrote in post #15780725
It just depends on the lighting. On a very bright sunny day, you should easily be able to get faster than 10s shutter speed with a 10 stop ND. This is part of the reason variable NDs are useful; they let you choose how much ND you want according to the occasion, and it is cheaper/more convenient than owning 5 different ND filters. The problem is that X pattern.

What exactly do you want to be taking photos of with the filter?

Yeah that makes sense really. How noticeable is this 'x pattern'? Yeah it is a lot cheaper as well by the looks of it.

I'm basically hoping to do some land/seascapes and hopefully some waterfalls if I come across any, an some sun rises/sets too, but really just anything I can have a play about with! Thanks guys!

would you mind just showing me the exact kit I'm looking at just so I know exactly what I'm looking for as I'm still not 100%

hollis_f wrote in post #15778154
Well, I was inspired to stop eating chocolate for a few moments and brave the arctic wind to check it out. Here's some crops of the embedded jpegs for - unfiltered, Haida 10-stop and Heliopan 10-stop

I really can't see much difference between the two filtered shots. The Heliopan is slightly warmer, which I prefer, although I know that a lot of people prefer a cooler result. The Heliopan is around twice the price of the Haida.

Thanks pal, I'll be sure to have a look at those at some point soon when I have a little more time!

Brelly wrote in post #15781202
Yeah that makes sense really. How noticeable is this 'x pattern'? Yeah it is a lot cheaper as well by the looks of it.

I'm basically hoping to do some land/seascapes and hopefully some waterfalls if I come across any, an some sun rises/sets too, but really just anything I can have a play about with! Thanks guys!

would you mind just showing me the exact kit I'm looking at just so I know exactly what I'm looking for as I'm still not 100%

The X pattern can be very noticeable, the wider your lens gets the more visible it is (since telephotos only see the middle part of the filter, you won't see as much of the X) and the more ND you dial in, the more visible it gets.

For that type of stuff, definitely go for a square filter kit unless you are happy blending exposures afterwards.

My landscape kit is this:
1x Lee 3 stop hard graduated ND
1x Lee 3 stop soft graduated ND
1x Hitech 3 stop reverse graduated ND
1x Lee 3 stop solid ND
1x Hoya slim CPL

Typically I just use the hard or soft GND depending on the horizon to darken the sky. For seascapes, a hard GND will do fine. A reverse GND is great for seascape sunsets or other sunsets where the horizon is relatively flat. The soft GND is good for when there are mountains or trees along the skyline. The solid ND is perfect for waterfalls (keep in mind that you may not want the water to be completely smooth and featureless, you might want to keep the shutter speed a bit higher so you can make out some "movement" in the water).

The CPL I haven't actually used much for landscape, just to remove reflections from water so far. I need to try and use it more.

Here are some examples of the results from using filters:
This was using the soft GND only, the sky was quite dark due to the clouds anyway, so 3 stops was fine, and soft due to the rocks and hills sticking up into the sky.

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png' | Redirected to error image by ZENFOLIO PROTECTED

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png' | Redirected to error image by ZENFOLIO PROTECTED

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png' | Redirected to error image by ZENFOLIO PROTECTED

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png' | Redirected to error image by ZENFOLIO PROTECTED

Brelly wrote in post #15781202
Yeah that makes sense really. How noticeable is this 'x pattern'?

Here's a test I did on a VND with my 10-22 at 11mm. No filter - 2-stops - 6 stops

Brelly wrote in post #15781202
Oh right yeah of course, I suppose I could open up the aperture, I suppose either way it's a fairly deep learning curve in knowing what I'll ned for each shot, isn't it. Oh right, how come it's harder to clean?

It isn't too big of a learning curve. It is more of trial and error. Or if you want to cut the trial and error and figure it out before you put the filter on, you can expose your shot normally, see what your shutter speed is, then calculate what it would be if it was 9 stops (or whatever number of stops it would be based on the type of filter) slower. I'm lazy and just slap on the ND filter and see how it affects my shutter speed. :P

In my experience, the coatings on the Hoya filters are easier to damage/scratch when cleaning than the B+W filters. YMMV

tagnal wrote in post #15784318
I'm lazy and just slap on the ND filter and see how it affects my shutter speed.

I've played with several 9 or 10 stop ND filters and none of them gave a reliable meter reading. They all greatly underexposed because they let a lot iof IR light through. And, although the sensor filters out most IR, the exposure meter doesn't. My Heliopan 10-stopper is only 6 stops on my IR camera.

Sirrith, tanks for all that info, that's quite useful to me actually, thanks for taking your time to post all that up! And Frank, thanks for that too, I think I'll be avoiding VND for now as I'm not up to scratch with all my editting yet to be able to mask that out!

So, if I were to get some of the lee filters, would I be right in going for say a 3 stop GND and then maybe two 3 stop ND, would that be a good starting point? Please tell me if I'm a mile away from being right as I'm still a little confused haha.