WHAT ARE ND FILTERS?
ND filters or Neutral Density Filter reduces the the amount of light that passes through your camera's lens. It is a piece of glass (or resin) that goes right in front of your lens. I like to think of them as a pair of sunglasses. On a bright sunny day, we put our shades on not to look cool (well maybe that too), but so we could see properly and don't end up squinting under the harsh daylight condition.
There are two types of filters, the circular filters that can just screw on your lens and then there's the square filters that needs a filter holder so it sits properly in front of your lens. There are pros and cons to both.
The circular filters are more compact and they just screw on directly to your lens. The downside is, the diameter of lenses vary (72mm, 77mm, 82mm etc.), if you have a lens diameter size of 72mm but your ND filter's thread size is 77mm, you need to get a step up ring. Step up rings acts as an adapter that allows you to slap on a filter in front of your lens that have a bigger thread size, or a smaller thread size (step down rings). Another downside is there's a possibility of the filters getting seized up on the lens making the removal procedure harder.
Now the pros for the square filters. You won't need step up rings or step down rings as all filters can be mounted in front of any of your lens. If graduated filters are being used, they are much easier to adjust on the lens. You are also able to stack the filters much easier. The downside is the footprint is much larger than screw on filters. They take up more space and are more fragile.
For this blog post, I'll be using a circular ND filter from Formatt Hitech. The 3 filters I'll be using are the Firecrest Ultra, ND 0.9 (3 stops), ND 1.8 (6 stops), and ND 3.0 (10 stops). ND Filters are rated in stops. Meaning, the higher the stops an ND filter has, the darker it's going to be.
WHY USE THEM FOR VIDEOGRAPHY?
There are several reasons why using ND filters are a good idea both when shooting videos and taking photos. Let's start with videos. When shooting videos, to create that motion blur, you need to have your shutter speed double of your frame rate. This is called the 180 deg. shutter rule. We want to create motion blur in our videos as it makes it more cinematic and it's what our eyes are used to seeing in real life. If your frame rate is 24 fps, you would need to double your shutter or get it close to it, for most of the cameras, that would be 1/50. If you're using 120 fps, your shutter needs to be 1/250 and so forth. For you to do this especially in bright day light, you need to use ND filters, otherwise, if you're shooting something mid day at 24 fps, your clips are most likely to be overexposed. By using ND filters, it will darken your clips allowing you to use proper shutter speed settings without your clips being overblown.
Another reason for using ND filters is that it allows us to shoot at larger apertures during daytime (f/2.8, f/2.0, f/1.8 etc.) creating that bokeh (blurry background) in our clips. Without ND filters, our clips would again be overexposed if we're shooting wide open in a harsh lighting condition. Having a nice shallow depth of field will make your clips look so much better as opposed to compensating for exposure by shooting at smaller apertures without any bokeh.
WHY USE THEM FOR PHOTOGRAPHY?
ND filters are used in photography mainly for taking long exposure shots during day time. It enables you to create a unique photo that is truly from you. Anyone can go to a spot and snap a photo of the same landscape. Doing long exposure shots adds a bit more of a personal touch to your photos. It allows you to take your creativity even further.
For landscape photographers, using ND filters will give you that creamy, misty look when shooting anything like an ocean or a waterfall. It will also make your skies have that cool, dragging look to them. In addition, it somewhat eliminates the people in your shot depending on the timing of them passing by, their walking/running pace, and how long you expose the shot for.
Lastly, like with the videography, ND filters will also allow you to shoot at larger apertures in a bright lighting condition without overexposing your image. If you were doing portraits during the midday or shooting a particular subject and wanting to create that bokeh, putting an ND filter in front of your lens will darken your image, allowing you to shoot at a larger aperture. Larger apertures mean you will have that bokeh, that blurry background that focuses your viewers attention to the subject you want them to look at in your image.
THE BUILD
Right off the bat, look and the feel of the filters from Formatt Hitech looks like it's been built well. You will see many filters nowadays that retails at a low price and that makes it attractive but one should question about the build quality. The thing is, would you want to put something of low quality in front of your expensive lens/ camera setup? It could potentially ruin the quality of your shots. So investing your money in an expensive camera and lens just goes to waste once a poorly built ND filter is in front of it all. Whatever you do, do your research, make sure the filter is not made of low quality.
The coating on the filter looks good, the grip around the ring is amazing and just the overall feel to really gives you the sense that it's a high quality filter. I'm reading some information on the box at the moment and it says the filters use a Firecrest multi-coating technology to ensure the highest optical fidelity and clarity. Well, there you go, a high quality filter is what we've got!
Now that we've inspected the quality of the filters, let's see how they perform! Check out the images below and let me know what you think of the quality.
To conclude this post, the filters are of high quality and the images will speak for themselves. If you're a photographer and/or a videographer, these are essential pieces that you need to have. I don't know how anyone can shoot without these. Unless you're a night photographer, there's no reason why you shouldn't have these with you on the go. I hope you guys enjoyed this review and as always, I love to hear from you guys so if you have any feedback or questions, leave them in the comment section down below!
