Variable ND Filters

WoZZeR · 3 Nov 2021 at 19:59

My other half has started Landscape Photography recently having mostly done Macro for the last few years.

Was pontificating purchasing a Variable ND Filter as a Christmas Gift, something like the B+W ND Vario MRC Nano 77.

Does anybody have any experience with this sort of filter?

Raymond Lin · 4 Nov 2021 at 09:51

Ignore me…I read it the other way round.

I do have that filter but not sure how useful it is for macro as you need to stop down quite a lot to get more DOF and always looking for more light, not less.

And · 4 Nov 2021 at 13:00

I would get a circular polariser ahead of an ND filter for landscapes, 'the other half' will find that far more useful.

FWIW I have a set of LEE Filters including holder + polariser attachment, slim polariser, 6-stop ND (little stopper), 10-stop ND (big stopper), 3x soft grads, 1x med grad, 1x reverse grad and 72 and 77mm step up rings that I'm looking to move on.

WoZZeR · 4 Nov 2021 at 18:56

I donated a Hoya Circular Polariser a while back, handy piece of kit. A complete set of filters would be far too much for our country walks I think.

Raymond Lin said:
Ignore me…I read it the other way round.

I do have that filter but not sure how useful it is for macro as you need to stop down quite a lot to get more DOF and always looking for more light, not less.

Is the filter OK? Do you use it much? Tell me more please.

Raymond Lin · 4 Nov 2021 at 19:06

WoZZeR said:
I donated a Hoya Circular Polariser a while back, handy piece of kit. A complete set of filters would be far too much for our country walks I think.

Is the filter OK? Do you use it much? Tell me more please.

I bought it for video, I got the 1-5 stops version. Quality is good, can’t complaint about that part, it is expensive, very expensive for a filter.

And · 4 Nov 2021 at 20:20

*thumbsup*

I've no idea on variable NDs though, sorry.

WoZZeR said:
I donated a Hoya Circular Polariser a while back, handy piece of kit. A complete set of filters would be far too much for our country walks I think./QUOTE]

ethan · 5 Nov 2021 at 00:43

I ended up spending triple the amount of money when it came to ND filters with many of the manufactures making claims about colour cast that weren't true. One thing I could say for certain however is that variable filters were the worst except for when it came to convenience. Moving on from variable ND's I tried the screw in kits from Urth which were generally ok/average before settling on the Nuances Extreme. Buying these things is very much like buying snake oil.