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Subject: ND Filters................Oh dear

ejn opened this issue on Feb 01, 2007 · 8 posts

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ejn ( ) posted Thu, 01 February 2007 at 6:27 AM · edited Sun, 26 January 2025 at 6:42 AM

Hi All,
To get the really nice misty water effect on waterfalls I tried ND filters.
I started with an ND2 but couldnt get the exposure low enough.
So I bought an ND8.
Now my understanding ( limited as it may be ) is that ND filters do not effect the saturation etc,they just give alonger exposure.
I find that it effects the exposure and I often end up with an image looking awful.
Do ND filters effect digital cameras.
I shoot on a Nikon D100

Sans2012 ( ) posted Thu, 01 February 2007 at 6:45 AM

Do you have an example with the exif attached? :)

I never intended to make art.

danob ( ) posted Thu, 01 February 2007 at 10:14 AM

In practice ND filters are not perfect as they do not reduce the intensity of all wavelengths equally. This can sometimes create color casts in recorded images, particularly with inexpensive filters. More significantly, most ND filters are only specified over the visible region of the spectrum, and do not proportionally block all wavelengths of ultraviolet or infrared radiation.. NB!! Dangerous if you have one fitted taking images with full sun whilst you view the scene in your viewfinder..

That is quite a leap from ND2 to 8 as stated it would be good to see the exif data, was it not possible to lower the iso and use something like f32 or whatever the lens you had was capable of?

Danny O'Byrne http://www.digitalartzone.co.uk/

"All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for the inability to notice" Eliott Erwitt

girsempa ( ) posted Thu, 01 February 2007 at 10:39 AM · edited Thu, 01 February 2007 at 10:40 AM

Just a remark about using high f-numbers...: Most lenses produce the best results when stopped down to about f5.6 or f8, but the image quality degrades from f11, f16 and further (sharpness drops due to light dispersion caused by the edges of the narrowing diafragm). So f32 doesn't sound like such a good idea... Have you tried using both ND and Polarising filters at the same time..? Still the best idea is to shoot in low light... early in the morning or late in the afternoon, preferably with a heavily overcast sky...

We do not see things as they are. ǝɹɐ ǝʍ sɐ sƃuıɥʇ ǝǝs ǝʍ

Onslow ( ) posted Thu, 01 February 2007 at 11:50 AM

Sounds to me like you are going about it the right way.

Perhaps you could say what you mean by " looking awful "?

And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Edward Lear
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html