Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: Graham Clark on May 04, 2015, 03:04:13 pm
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Bryan Carnathan over at the-digital-picture.com just wrote a pretty decent 10-stop ND technical shootout-style review with the B+W ND vs. Heliopan ND vs. Hoya ProND vs. Tiffen ND vs. Singh-Ray Mor-Slo vs. Breakthrough Photography X3 ND.
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/10-Stop-Neutral-Density-Filter.aspx
(http://i2.wp.com/breakthrough.photography/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Control-vs-X3-ND-6-stop-vs-Formatt-Firecrest-ND-6-stop-vs-B-W-ND-6-stop-Review-Closeup-1.jpg?zoom=2&resize=476%2C321)
If you're concerned with critical sharpness and color neutrality definitely check it out.
Graham
ps - I'm with Breakthrough
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http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/10-Stop-Neutral-Density-Filter.aspx
Based on what I see in the above link, my choices would be Hoya or Breakthrough depending on your needs. I wouldn't even consider the Tiffen, B&W or Heliopan.
1. Hoya - $97
2. Breakthrough - $179
And if you just have to spend $380, the the Singh-Ray!
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OK, I may be a bit naive - but can't you just shoot a decent gray card or a Gretag color card and correct from there?
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OK, I may be a bit naive - but can't you just shoot a decent gray card or a Gretag color card and correct from there?
Sure, until you change lighting conditions and have to repeat the process over each time.
Besides, color matters! :) It's worth it (to some photographers) to have lenses and other optics resolve sharp and not arbitrarily throw color where color doesn't exist.
Graham
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OK, I may be a bit naive - but can't you just shoot a decent gray card or a Gretag color card and correct from there?
Yes, but as Graham said, you have to do a new shot in every lighting condition. And some casts are very difficult to correct because they are not uniform across the spectrum.
No ND is perfectly neutral. But neutrality is just one factor. The clarity of the glass is another. About 20 years ago B+W filters got a great reputation and the Schott glass is great, but I find them impossible to keep clean, not near as neutral and you would expect and even though brass, they bind like aluminum filters.
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No, what I'm saying is that you can't use auto WB in your scenario.
The X3 ND is not 100% color neutral. It is however the most color neutral: http://diglloyd.com/articles/Filters/filter-X3-ND-10stop.html
Graham
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OK, I may be a bit naive - but can't you just shoot a decent gray card or a Gretag color card and correct from there?
When using wide-angle lenses, the effect of some ND filters is more accentuated on the corners (sort of a vignetting effect), because the light has to travel a longer distance inside the filter; when that happens, the color cast is also more accentuated on the corners, and that is quite hard to correct on post.
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Gray card correction doesn't fix everything. Some ND filters will make mud out of certain tones. Your best bet is a "water white" ND filter like Tiffen makes.
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Lee?
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CptZar,
Lee?
"Note that the popular and reasonably-priced Lee Big Stopper 10-Stop ND Filter was not included in this comparison review. I needed a threaded round filter, but the Big Stopper is only available in flat rectangular sizes. I will consider the addition of Big Stopper results to this page at some point in the future."
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The review has a couple of problems relating to a lack of information about which camera he did the tests with and breadth of filters he tested . While he states which Canon camera and lenses he used, in my more limited tests, the different sensor/processor technologies in different makes of cameras make a major difference in color rendering.
Also he doesn't state which Tiffen 10-stop (ND 3.0) filter he tested. Tiffen makes at least three if not four different ones.
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CptZar,
"Note that the popular and reasonably-priced Lee Big Stopper 10-Stop ND Filter was not included in this comparison review. I needed a threaded round filter, but the Big Stopper is only available in flat rectangular sizes. I will consider the addition of Big Stopper results to this page at some point in the future."
Txs!
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I have also read some good reviews about "Haida" filters: cheaper than most other brands, reasonable image quality, and very color neutral.
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Lee?
Much as I like my big stopper it is far from neutral, its certainly good and workable but often I am adding 5-10k WB. The little stopepr is much better,
Format hitech firecrest is probably the best square one atm.
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I don't know about Breakthrough, but my favorite is Singh-Ray since they offer both 10-stop and 15-stop in various sizes.
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Sorry to revive an old thread... anyone purchased these and have feedback to add? Thought I would give them a try.
John
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Sorry to revive an old thread... anyone purchased these and have feedback to add? Thought I would give them a try.
John
i dot buy any of what he reviewed, i borrowed a haida from a local camera shop and from its performance, i bought the 6x and 10x
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When using wide-angle lenses, the effect of some ND filters is more accentuated on the corners (sort of a vignetting effect), because the light has to travel a longer distance inside the filter; when that happens, the color cast is also more accentuated on the corners, and that is quite hard to correct on post.
Try a little program called CornerFix.
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Actually an Lens Cast Correction (LCC) shot with the filter in place can also correct this relatively easily (especially if you are using CaptureOne). Check out the Lens Cast Correction video on the Capture One 9 videos here on LuLa for how to do this. The downside is that you would have to do it for each lighting condition you encounter.
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I have Breakthrough 10-stops in two different sizes. I have Formatt-Hitech in a 6-stop and a B+W in a 3-stop. Color cast means nothing to me as I only use these filters for bw conversions and the very occasional sunrise/sunset. I like the Breakthrough for the knurled edges and it works well (very neutral). I found the F-H, despite the tests shown, to be very similar. I shoot a D810 which probably records differently from a Canon. I have produced some fantastic images stacking the B and F-H. When I stacked the B+W with either one of the others I got some weird flaring which could not be removed.
Just my experience.
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Two weeks ago I bought just a Hoya ProND 64 by Foto Gino in Livigno (Duty Free), but I haven't used it yet...
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OK, I may be a bit naive - but can't you just shoot a decent gray card or a Gretag color card and correct from there?
Yeah, My opinion is the same. Who gives a shit if you get a color cast? Correct it in post, and no one can tell the difference? Maybe I'm wrong, I wanted a breakthrough but they were sold out and on backorder before my trip. Pull it together and ship things in a reasonable amount of time once you release and they'd have had me trying it at least. I'm on B&W, need a new one because of minor scuffs, but it honestly still performs at about 97% and I don't even notice the minor scuff on any images.