Any pictures taken using a Neutral Density filter?
I bought a Variable Density ND filter recently and was mortified to find that despite the price of almost $300, it had no external threads so shooting near the ocean resulted in a lot of salt buildup.
The other thing I noticed was that regardless of the position of the outer element, I ended up with an uneven tint on my wide angle lens.
Should I have used a non-variable ND filter (solid, evenly-tinted glass slab)?
Any advice or tips?
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>>2818547
>I ended up with an uneven tint on my wide angle lens
Variable Density ND filters consist of 2 polarizing filters, this may explain the uneven illumination. These filters are used mostly by videographers using dslr, are you shooting video? If not you are probably better off with normal (cheaper) ND filters.
>>2818557
No video... just still pictures. Perhaps it's more noticeable on a wide-lens. I tried using Live Preview to see if I could darken the image but it was always shifting when I turned the outer element. Either one corner would be dark or the sides were or the middle. I found it useless and regret spending the money on it. The girl at my camera store is an advanced photographer and recommended it to me when I told her I wanted to buy two different ND filters. Really disappointing.
It is a Hoya Variable Density Filter 3-400 (see pic). If I remember correctly it cost around $280 locally. Way too much money considering that I can't use it in bright light.
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This is pretty much what happens.
>>2818547
>$300 ND filter
wow.
you went full retard
>>2818567
I know this,had it before too on my var nd with my 10-20.
I didnt find any way around and just bought a cheap non Variable nd for photography with the wideangle
>>2818567
Holy fuck
Looks like it is "broken" perhaps mismatched filters when assembled.
>considering that I can't use it in bright light
>ND filter
Take it back and tell them it's faulty. Get a refund and get the two you wanted.
>The girl at my camera store is hot
ftfy
>>2818567
VNDs don't really work on wide angle lenses. The polarization of the light changes so dramatically over the span of the frame that it can only block some of the light, and this is what you end up with.
>>2818547
Just get a cheap Cokin P filter set from china, that should give a good start. later on you can get better quality filters.
>>2818606
at least get a kenko.
chink filters are junk.
>$300
>Variable
LOOK AT THIS LANDSCAPE FAGGOT AND LAUGH.
Maybe you should git gud and stop using such a wide lens.
>>2818565
>The girl at my camera store is an advanced photographer and recommended it to me
She's not advanced. She's just good at suckering idiots into spending $300 when they should have gotten a $30 filter.
Pro tip: sales people have no incentive to not waste your money if you're stupid.
>>2818947
If you give the remotest shit about having decent image quality, you're a fucking retard for getting a $30 filter.
>durr, imma spend 1k on a body 1k on a lens and then slap cheap glass in front of that!
>>2818972
>a couple millimeters of glass is gonna noticeably change image quality guys!
Look at this fucking snakeoil gulping retard.
The difference is only noticeable if you're shooting bright light sources or including the sun in the shot.
Someone taking a 10-20 second exposure of a flowing river isn't going to include the sun in the shot, because that would be massively blown out whatever the filter's price is.
But please do go ahead and throw your money in a trash can.
I have a few, but don't spend your money with variable ND. Lee filters, Cokin or just buy a set of them and go adding them when necessary.
>>2818986
>a couple millimeters of glass is gonna noticeably change image quality guys!
...you don't see how thinking that this isn't the case is mind-blowingly absurd and you call me a retard?
>>2818972
No, spending more money doesn't automatically make things better. Some things are inherently inexpensive. Companies are aware that people like you exist, so they're happy to rebadge these items at 10x markups so that you can feel better.
>>2819078
elipses-kun, you've returned!
>>2819118
I wasn't claiming a cart blanch "spending money makes things better". But, if you or the other cockgobbler had the slightest clue about optics, you'd know that quality filters are plainly and objectively not one of those items that are "inherently inexpensive". You can keep pretending to be intelligent and so massively aware of how everyone else is getting played by the system or however you frame it in your own mind, but that doesn't change the fact that cheap nds have significant effect upon image quality.
It's also entirely absurd to think that it's worthwhile to cheap out on the filter when you consider the cost of everything else that's being purchased with the intent of getting a certain level of image quality. It's like buying a high performance car, then putting the cheapest tires Walmart has on it.
Glass, filters, speedboosters, teleconverters, and lenses mind you, is more important than than bodies. This has been proven time and time again. Now there are of course some common sense limitations to this, but I feel compelled to mention this because you severely lack common sense else you would understand how putting a piece of transparent/translucent material (at the $30 price range you're highly unlikely to be getting any kind of glass or crystal for an ND filter) in front of a specifically calibrated optical system can affect that optical system and how things like materials, uniformity of manufacturing process, and quality control matter in minimizing the unwanted effects.
>>2819127
senpai, not kun nigga.
>>2819139
You're just begging for a downgrade to chan desu
>>2819141
If you think about it for a moment, senpai is more insulting than kun or chan. It means I've wasted more of my life on this board than you. You don't want to be a senpai of /p/. Trust me.
>>2818547
Sorry OP, but before spending 300 on a filter you should have searched a little more. All variable ND filters produce an X shaped pattern in your pictures, which can be very evident when it's a solid colour pattern (for example a picture of the sky).
In photography, when it's about glass, less is more.
>but suugur you posted it again
First off, fuck you, class is in session.
This image here was done at 28mm using a Cokin P 6x ND filter I found on ebay with IR blocking, which didn't work for shit when I started stacking filters. I did 30 seconds @ f/16 ISO 50 on a Canon 5D.
This shit is important because different wavelengths of visible light travel at different speeds. IF you look very carefully you will see a magenta cast on this image most notably in the background. That is caused from a partial IR bleed which becomes exacerbated when you stack filters. Someone here can probably explain this better than me but you lose some colors the more NDs you stack or something to that magnitude.
The problem with the P set is stacking filters and blocking IR is almost impossible because light still leaks in between the filter and front element causing IR bleed. Or at least that's my guess I probably got a shitty filter.
Wide angle and ND is clearly possible though. You will want to watch for noise and hot pixels especially past 120 seconds. Use screw filters if you are really stretching your exposure, especially on film where you can use reciprocity failure to your advantage.
That's not to say the P filter set is shit because I have one but it's really only useful on film, and some digital applications.
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I picked-up a Bower variable ND filter for $30 and it works pretty well, unless I absolutely close it all the way
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>>2820132
>different wavelengths of visible light travel at different speeds
...no, no they don't. Speed of light in a given medium is a constant. Doesn't matter the wavelength.
>>2820132
>>2820159
can confirm, tripfag is fucking clueless.
Grabbed an easy explanation from physics textbook
>The above example illustrates how to use the wave equation to solve mathematical problems. It also illustrates the principle that wave speed is dependent upon medium properties and independent of wave properties. Even though the wave speed is calculated by multiplying wavelength by frequency, an alteration in wavelength does not affect wave speed. Rather, an alteration in wavelength affects the frequency in an inverse manner. A doubling of the wavelength results in a halving of the frequency; yet the wave speed is not changed.
>>2820218
everything else he said about IR bleed is sound, though. he's american - don't be too harsh when it comes to sciencey stuff.
Also what the fuck, Sugar et al. , has noone ever heard of uv/ir cut filters? IR bleed buhbye.
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>>2820228
>>2820218
The basic oversimplified (i.e. not really correct, but correct enough for /p/'s purposes) rundown of what happens when you stack filters is that different wavelengths get out of phase with each other.
While wavelengths travel at a constant speed through a given medium, they bend at different rates. This is one of the reasons you'll see complicated assed element combinations inside of lenses. Much of that is to ensure that no matter where you focus, each of the colors are focused on the same spot and don't split apart like the old red/blue 3D shit.
When you start putting extra glass in front of your lens, you're bending light in ways that weren't accounted for when they designed the lens, so those corrective elements don't correct it which fucks the color.
This also doesn't include imperfections in the color of a given filter (cheap NDs are notorious for having very strong and sometimes uneven color casts--spendy ones have a much more neutral (although generally blueish) and more importantly even color) that can throw color out of whack in other ways as well as if there are differences in thickness in different areas of the filter. Good filters are spendy because they're just as precisely manufactured as top tier lenses.
IR bleed is basically just ghosting/flaring, but from infrared radiation and not visible light. I don't stack filters all that often so it's not something I've had to deal with and haven't really looked into it, but I suspect it's because certain filters are semi-reflective of infrared which can allow some through to bounce around between the filters which gets picked up by the sensor. I'm probably entirely wrong about this though.
>>2820237
>I'm probably entirely wrong about this though.
It's something you mentioned - different refractive indices for different wavelengths. The focal plane for IR is different than the vis bit lenses are corrected for, chrom-aberr.-wise. Thus is gets resolved as a blurry haze.
Here's a good example, was testing a point-and-shoot PowerShot with a 720nm filter - since it was unmodified it worked more like a strong red-only ND filter with some extra IR - and focused on infinity, it was sharp for the bit of vis spectrum leaking through, rather than the foliage-reflected IR. Thus, sharp branches and white leaf clouds on this crop.
>>2820214
>>2820159
Well fuck.
I swear someone on here had mentioned something to that effect where like, blue light travels faster or some shit. well fuck me in the ass I finally learned something on /p/ this year.
>>2820228
I was a brokedick at the time and didn't know fuck all about IR other than it looked pretty and I was more or less doing the same thing in Lightroom with my BW landscapes at the time.
>>2820132
>different wavelengths of visible light travel at different speeds
>>2820273
should read: different wavelengths of visible light travel at different speeds through glass
>>2820159
holee shiet.
did you drop out of school?
>>2818547
>300$ ND Filter
You're beyond hope
>>2820311
You fucker.
Why do I even try out /p/
>$300
>ND
>Variable
>The girl at my camera store
>advanced photographer
It must be beautiful to work in a camera store and watch landscape fags walk in. Taking their money is almost like stealing candy from a baby.
psssst kid, want some snake oil for your lens? It'll make your landscape shots better, only $300.
>>2820247
>I swear someone on here had mentioned
>I finally learned something on /p/ this year.
>>2820287
Wait is this true? Maybe that was what I was trying to say.
>>2820792
No. That guy is an idiot.
The *only* thing that changes the speed of light is the medium through which it travels. Frequency, wavelength, phase, whatever...none of that affects wavespeed in any way.
>>2820792
this is what youre thinking of probably
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispersive_prism
>This dispersion occurs because the angle of refraction is dependent on the refractive index of a certain material which in turn is slightly dependent on the wavelength of light that is travelling through it. This means that different wavelengths of light will travel at different speeds, and so the light will disperse into the colours of the visible spectrum, with longer wavelengths (red, yellow) being refracted less than shorter wavelengths (violet, blue).
