nd filters

im looking for a set of 37mm nd filters.

these cant be that good can they??? anyone have experince?

http://www.amazon.com …f_=sr_1_sc_1&sr​=8-1-spell

im not looking for the BEST but i want them to be decent. just looking to do some longer exposures during the daylight hours..

mike_311 wrote in post #18032393
im looking for a set of 37mm nd filters.

these cant be that good can they??? anyone have experince?

http://www.amazon.com …f_=sr_1_sc_1&sr​=8-1-spell

im not looking for the BEST but i want them to be decent. just looking to do some longer exposures during the daylight hours..

Those will produce an image that looks like your shot was done through spray painted Tupperware. Bad.

If you want inexpensive but good quality filters, look to Haida, Marumi, Hoya.

37mm is a very small filter diameter, so you should be able to get away with cheaper filters just due to that, but still go for good quality filters.

The problem is, 37mm is odd. You're more likely to find good 58mm filters. And just use a step up ring (37mm -> 58mm) so that you can use larger filters. Plus those filters can be used on most common kit glass too. It's very common for most of us to get filters the size of our largest diameter filter thread lenses and then step down to anything smaller with rings, instead of getting filters that exactly fit just one lens (example getting 77mm and using it on anything from 39mm, 58mm, 67mm and 72mm which are common enough) with just one filter via step down rings.

There are excellent filters (ie, as good as any expensive brand) that are 58mm from Haida. Look for 58mm Haida Pro SLIM II 10 stop, they're $30 on Ebay shipped. And they're as good as a Lee filter frankly (I literally sold my Lee filters and use a cheap Haida for my work!). Just add a $3 step down ring (37mm -> 58mm) and you're set. I use rubber collapsible lens hoods with them so that I can use large lens hoods with the larger filters (also very cheap).

Long exposure in day light starts with a 10 stop filter. Not a 3, 6, etc. Unless you mean in dark canopy covered, overcast daylight, then you can use 3 stop and 6 stop, etc. But if you want day light, 10 stop is where you start.

I'd do:

Haida Pro SLIM II 10 stop ($30ish) at 58mm ::: If you don't need 10 stop, look at 3 stop or 6 stop instead, depends on overall exposure time you're looking to get to.
Step down ring (37mm to 58mm) ($3ish)
58mm Rubber Lens Hood ($8ish)

(only because again it will be hard to find things at 37mm, that's not that common)

Cheap, very good quality, no sharpness loss, very minimal color cast (bluish tint at best).

Very best,

haha, i figured as much but with almost a 1000 reviews and almost 5 stars i was second guessing them.

thanks, i'll look at the 58mm since i wasnt finding much at 37mm.

mike_311 wrote in post #18032437
haha, i figured as much but with almost a 1000 reviews and almost 5 stars i was second guessing them.

thanks, i'll look at the 58mm since i wasnt finding much at 37mm.

Well, another thing to consider, is that those filters you linked are a 1 stop, 2 stop and 3 stop filter. That won't get you any where in day light. I read everything on there and there are too many glowing reviews. I've bought these cheap filters before and they do not produce clean results at all. You can make anything look really great when only seeing a 500 x 200 compressed JPG on the web. If those people posted their full resolution image, you'd see the immediate issue (sharpness loss, ghosting/aberration, etc). I think we all start with a cheap $10 filter some where and try it out. I wish I had listened or read more when I first bought stuff, to avoid it. Instead, I ended up going from cheap filter and seeing how awful they are, to Lee filters and dropping tons of cash, to realize it's oversung and started buying & testing middle of the road filters myself and reading more trust worthy comparisons from third party non-vendors. Ultimately ended up selling my costly filters and I stay with very inexpensive but high quality filters, like Haida & Hoya.

I just looked and saw a 58mm Haida Pro SLIM II ND3.0 / 1000x (this means 10 stops) for $29~37 with free shipping on Ebay.

10 stops will get you to 20~30 seconds in full sunlight midday. If that's longer than you want, then look at a 6 stop.

If you're wanting longer than 30 seconds in full sunlight, you'll want a 12 stop or 16 stop.

I've compared Lee filters, Hoya, B&W, etc, and ultimately found for the inexpensive stuff, to get basically the same quality as the big brands (at least here in USA), Haida still has the lower price point while being a top notch filter. Sometimes these lower priced filters get popular and get high priced (Marumi is a good example, excellent filters, used to be cheap, but got popular and prices are now near B&W and Hoya pro line). Haida is still the gem' for the dime.

What exactly are you looking to do long exposure wise (subject matter and exposure length goals)?

Very best,

If you you really need a set of ND filters, getting decent ones that are 37mm is going to be a bit expensive because fewer quality brands offer a good selection in this size. B+W does, but the ND filters range from $35-$70ish depending on the density and coating options. If you can narrow it down to needing just one density, a 37mm filter in a good brand like B+W or Heliopan won't disappoint.

If you really do need a selection of different densities, I agree with MalVeaux that a step-up ring is the way to go, because the options really unlock at the 49mm size. At this size, you have a good selection of Hoya Pro and HMC filters available. These hold their own against B+W and Heliopan, optically, and they range just $27 - $41 for 1 to 10 stops. I'm not personally acquainted with Haida, but their ND3.0 filter is $27.20 in 49mm on Amazon, as compared to $65 in the 37mm size.

As for going 37mm->58mm. The only reason I see for going specifically to 58mm would be if you have other lenses like the 85/1.8 that you know you will use the filters on. If not, majority of what's available in 58mm size is available in the same product lines at 49mm or 52mm size cheaper, so you can save a few bucks.

thanks for the advice. i have been doing a bit of hiking so i'm looking to just get a long enough exposure to blur some waterfalls or surf. 20-30 seems a bit extreme.

if i wanted to shoot at f11 and get 10s or so what density should i look at?

mike_311 wrote in post #18032883
if i wanted to shoot at f11 and get 10s or so what density should i look at?

That all depends on the time of day and cloud or canopy coverage. I've shot long exposures of waterfalls midday with no ND filter thanks to a thick canopy. Other times I've had to double stack my 3 and 4 stop ND's.

If you want "cheap" that's not going to kill your wallet think about a cheap square filter system. A cheap plastic Cokin P filter holder (or there are even cheaper Chinese versions on eBay) and a couple Formatt Hitech filters will not degrade sharpness. But if you stack too many of them you will get a magenta color cast that will have to be dealt with in post

mike_311 wrote in post #18032883
thanks for the advice. i have been doing a bit of hiking so i'm looking to just get a long enough exposure to blur some waterfalls or surf. 20-30 seems a bit extreme.

if i wanted to shoot at f11 and get 10s or so what density should i look at?

Every stop cuts the light in half and therefore doubles your exposure time. So, a 3 stop filter will give you a 8x increase in exposure time, and a 10 stop filter will roughly increase your exposure time by 1000x.

So all you need to do is check your your exposure times in your current photos and future out how many stops you need to slow down your shutter by to get to your desired 10 sec exposure time.

Increasing a shutter speed of 1/125s by 10 stops (1024×) will give a shutter speed of 8 seconds, if using the usual shutter speed value roundings, for the true pedants it should be a speed of 1/128s to to end up with a full round 8s. To calculate the change in shutter speed for any number of stops simply multiply (or divide if you are moving back to a faster shutter speed) the current shutter speed by two raised to the power of the number of stops, or ×2^N where N is the number of stops.

Alan

If you want to really smooth out motion during daylight, of things like flowing water, waves, passing trains, etc.. you're going to end up with a 9 or 10 stop filter. Given that you have ISO and aperture to vary, you'll be able to get your target exposure time with either, so it's not critical which you pick. I use a Hoya NDX400 which I believe is 9 stops.

Whether or not you need a less-strong ND filter depends on if you have use cases where you need long exposures, but you're in the shade, or it's not bright daylight. I more commonly use weak ND filters (3 stops or less) for shooting wider apertures outdoors when it's so bright I'm at max shutter speed and minimum ISO and still overexposing.

Big thing about filters: Buy a very nice case for them, and keep it clean!

Good filters will last ages if you take care of them, and they're something that is easy to build a collection of over time. Buy one now for a specific style of shooting you want to do, and then buy another later in the year. Something to keep in mind when placing orders for other little things to bump a shipment up over the free shipping offer.

Ideally you would want a nice range of them for the most flexibility in shooting, but nothing says you need all of them in your gear bag by next week. Drop the coin on a decent high powered filter in the 10-12 stop range to play with some daylight long exposure stuff and see how that works for you, and then evaluate your needs. Maybe you want something even darker, maybe you will go for something lighter like a 2-4 stop filter just to keep things wide open in sun.


There is a lot to be said about working with plate/gel filters that fit into mounts/matte boxes, especially if you have a wide range of lenses to work with. (And you can use things like gradient filters far far more effectively rather than being limited to the positioning offered by a circular mount filter.) That said, I still only own a handful of circular filters, and haven't yet bought a filter holder frame.

Plenty of good advice here! Of course you get "shades" of different viewpoints, but it's up to you to take the first steps forward.

One thing is that people who are "serious" about this field will end up with a set of filters. A typical set you hear about would have a 3, a 6 and a 10 stop, and you may be surprised to see/hear about stacking all 3 to get the results you are after.

And, I would myself take the advice to get filters which are larger than a smaller lens, use the step-down adapter, although the suggestion of getting a frame for the square filters is something to consider, for sure. For one thing that design can be needed for mounting graduated density filters and being able to adjust the position of the filter to properly "capture" the scene without being forced into a fixed "line" for the horizon or whatever.

One more thing to toss out: if you want to do some faster shutter speed work, one tool to consider is a circular polarizer filter. It's kind of cool, because as you rotate the polarizer element, you can move from a 1-stop "effect" to a 2-stop, and you could be surprised at how effective that can be, for example if you are shooting some moving water and want to slow things down a bit but you don't want to resort to the cliché view of moving water that looks totally, well, you know what I mean?

Luckless wrote in post #18033931
(And you can use things like gradient filters far far more effectively rather than being limited to the positioning offered by a circular mount filter.)

I'd be curious to know how many people still use gradient filters in the digital age, and of those who do, if it's just a carry over of their film technique or something they still feel is the best solution (and if so, for what subjects/use cases). I know they were necessary and popular in the film era, especially with landscape photographers for reducing the dynamic range of a scene by darkening just the sky portion of a shot. Since going digital, I'm usually bracketing all my daytime landscape shots, and using HDR techniques. I have not yet encountered a use case where I needed a gradient done at exposure time, in a single shot.

I personally haven't yet invested in a grad filter setup. (The vast majority of my work is done indoors, or as already light starved wildlife photography, so it hasn't been a priority in the budget.) However I do know a few photographers who make use of them in digital rather than bracketed shots blended in post.

Technically speaking, for a single frame shot a grad filter is more useful on a digital sensor than it is on film, because the dynamic range of digital isn't as high as the majority of film options. The digital will signal clip and blow out the whites before most films will, so a grad filter lets you pull down a skyline and retain detail that you're otherwise losing.

This of course is offset by the far easier merging of multiple exposures in digital, so you do have other options and work arounds rather than investing in grad filters and such, but the images produced aren't completely identical. The photographers I know who do make use of grad filters on their digital gear these days are doing so because they don't want to deal with the minor issues that can arise from blending in post. They would rather stand beside their camera getting things as they want them then and there rather than sitting in front of their computer to get a similar result later. (Blending different exposures from different frames gives you issues such as motion and alignment problems. Then things like getting halos and render artifacts.)

They are tools that let you work in different ways. Study them, read about them, and decide if they're possibly useful to what you are trying to do.