Sycamoe Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 <p>I know this has been asked before but looking for opinions: If my goal is to blur water and in some cases to aid in reducing depth of field, what might be the one ND filter strength to get? I know multiple filters is the way but money is very much an issue.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howard_m Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 <p>I have and use a 4 stop Tiffen along w/ polarizer as needed. That gets me a good 5-6 stops and is enough to do what I want. A lot of the blur water shots are actually under moderately low light (in shade) and I don't go for the loooooong exposures.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianS1664879711 Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 <p>Why not just use slower film than you are using to get slower shutter speed and more open aperture?</p> ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesFarabaugh Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 <p>Brian,<br> Because sometimes you don't have time on your side, your ISO won't go low enough, and your aperture won't go small enough. I recently had this issue. I wanted to shoot long exposure, but unfortunately I wasn't able to wait for the sun to go down. I set the ISO on my 60D to 100, closed the aperture to f/22, and still even a 1 second exposure was washed out. Like Harry, I need to invest in a ND filter, and can't afford to buy several.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcuknz Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 <p>I would and did get the strongest filter I could find.<br> The alternative is to get a two filters, either a pair of Linear Polarisers or one circular and one linear. Either combination when rotated against each other give you a variable ND result down to near 'no light passing'. Linear/Circular relates to their construction and not their physical shape.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjoseph7 Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 <p>I probably would get the 3 stop(6X) so I could us it on things other than water falls. If I needed extra dimming power I could stack my polarizer filter which blocks 2 stops of light on top of it.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
szrimaging Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 <p>7 stop, but maybe I'm a bit nuts......</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
szrimaging Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 <p>Oh, and there are variable ND filters, but I'm not sure how well they work.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ted_raper1 Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 <p>My wife bought me a variable ND filter for Christmas, a Hoya, and it works very well. That would be my suggestion.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wouter Willemse Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 <p>Only have the B+W ND106, 6-stops. I mainly got it to be able to use wide apertures on sunny days, and much less so for the silky water look. So it's more than enough for my purposes.<br> If it would be for the silky water effect mainly, I'd go for the 10-stops; kind of a lot, but (on a good tripod) it'll certainly do the trick.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now