Most of us neglect filters since they’re cheap and easily replaceable. However, investing in an affordable case for protection wouldn’t hurt as well. That’s especially if you own high-end filters that cost hundreds of dollars or more. In LensVid’s latest video, they review a cheap E-Bay case you might want to use for your next shoot.
The problem with variable NDs and why fixed NDs are still relevant
Variable neutral density filters are quite a wonderful thing. In theory. They let you adjust your exposure outside of the camera’s own systems as the light on your scene changes. They’re quick and convenient, and expensive if you want a good one. But are they really all that good?
Lok Cheung used variable ND filters during his tenure at Digital Rev. He was typically the one manning the camera filming Kai. But since he’s gone solo, he’s noticed that they’re not really as practical as he’d like. Nor do they really offer the quality that one needs today. In this video, he explains why variable NDs just don’t hold up to the job, and why fixed NDs reign supreme.
This is the only lens filter you cannot replicate behind a computer
When I took on photography, there were a lot of filters to consider. ND, Haze, warming, cooling, grad-ND, polarizers. Heck, I had so many filters that sometimes they needed a little bag of their own inside my photography bag. Today though, most of the filters can be mimicked with photoshop.
Landscape photographer Mark Denney makes an interesting point, he shows three of the more common filters, ND, Grad-ND and a circular polarizer and while two of those filters can be replaced with photoshop-work. Mark asks a simple question, would you rather be spending your time editing in front on a computer, or hiking and shooting behind a camera.
Are cheap ND filters really any good?
Using ND filters is a great way to get creative with your photography, creating motion in your images with long exposures, being able to shoot wide open in full sun, producing smooth silky waters are just a few ways to have fun with them. In this blog I show you how I used a cheap eBay variable ND filter to produce these images below and then compare the images using more expensive and excellent quality B+W filters.
3 ways to smooth out jumpy time lapse movies
If you’ve ever taken a long time lapse only to discover your shutter settings were bad, you know how frustrating it can be. Instead of having a nice blurred sequence you end up with jumpy footage. Somewhat of a staccato. While it id obviously best to get that motion blur in camera, if you totally missed it here are three ways from Preston Kanak to fix jumpy footage.
Create Cheap ND Filters For Your DJI Phantom 3
Photo hacker and drone pilot Rui M. Leal was a little disappointed “Jell-O effect” and dark corners on his new DJI Phantom 3. After reading about how a neutral density filter can help reduce or eliminate this, he set about finding one. However, as he soon discovered, there aren’t currently a whole lot of accessories for the stock camera, so he set about creating some himself.
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How To Add An ND filter To The Impossibly Curved Rokinon 8mm F2.8 Fisheye Lens
We mentioned the Rokinon 8mm f2.8 several times on the blog as being a great lens for its price. One thing that is kinda hard to do with this lens is use filters. This is both because the curvature of the lens extends beyond the filter thread and also because of the shape of the petals of the built in lens hood.
This makes it practically impossible to place an ND filter on such lens. The folks at CheesyCam just shared a sweet hack using a Rosco ND gel and some blue tack. The trick is to place the gel at the back of the lens rather than in the front of the lens as we usually do. For ND CheesyCam uses the 3404 gel from the Rosco cinegel sample book, which cuts 3 stops off, and placed it using some blue tack.
Even zoomed in at 400% I was actually quite surprised that the gel almost did not introduce any softness.
[Adding ND Filter Gel on Rokinon Fisheye Lens to Block Light via CheesyCam]
P.S. You can use a similar hack with the Rokinon 8mm f2.8 to shoot infra red photos.
