Why You Should Use ND Filters
Sunglasses For Your Camera
Ever looked into the sun with your naked eye? I bet it almost blinded you or at least left some temporary purple spots in your vision. Having learned your lesson, you would probably haven wore sunglasses to prevent that from ever happening again.
Just like your eyes, the camera doesn’t like excessive light, and it would result in an outcome where the image becomes overly bright or ‘overexposed’, making it unusable. The photo taken is not very pleasing to the eye as details and information of the subject is lost.
If you have this problem, let me introduce you to ND filters, otherwise known as sunglasses for your camera.
What is an ND Filter?
The ND in ND filter stands for Neutral Density. ND filters play an important part in allowing you to maintain your shutter speed for photography and video productions.
What exactly do they do?
How it helps you?
One of the most sought after portrait shots is an out-of-focus look also known as ‘ bokeh’. This requires your camera to have a lower aperture setting from F2.8 and below to get the buttery smooth effect around your subject.
Opening your aperture up can be slightly tricky as there will definitely be an excess of unwanted light, especially during the day. Having an ND filter can help you cut down on the light to be able to have a clear vision of your subject.
Long Exposure
Ever seen one of these shots before? Well, I can assure you that you will probably never see this in real life. These shots are known as light trails and can only be captured over long periods of time when your camera shutter is exposed. This mystical look can be created from anything, from car headlights or street lights to playing with sparklers.
The key to achieving this look maintaining the excess of light. By placing the ND filter in front of your lens for 5 seconds to 1 minute, you can regulate the amount of light coming into your camera sensor and capture the movement of light just like these. Give it a try!
Astro Photography
What you see below is known as ‘Astro photography’, and is also achieved using the ‘long exposure’ method. And yes, you’d also need an ND filter.
Similar to how light trails are being captured, it takes a much longer time to capture stars, and they must be exposed to the camera for a period of minutes to hours. An astro-photographer would definitely need a respectable amount of patience to achieve shots such as these.
Video production
Motion is often overlooked and taken-for-granted in video production, but it actually affects the aesthetics of footage. ND filters will help you achieve movement that is more natural and less choppy, making for better video experience.
Generally, to have a nice video flow, you would want to have the shutter speed double of your frame rate.
For example, if your frame rate is 25fps, you need a shutter speed of 1/50. If you have it higher than that, the movements would look really choppy, and if it is lower than that, then the video looks very slow and the motion blur will not look natural.
If you don’t use an ND filter, your footage is likely to be really overexposed, especially if you are trying to get a shutter speed of 1/50 in broad daylight. An ND filter basically acts like sunglasses, filtering out the strong light to be able to see the details.
Variable ND filter
If you don’t want to bring so many filters around, and just want to have one that is adjustable, then you would need a variable ND filter. By turning a gear on the ND filter, you can adjust how much light is being filtered out. Variable ND filters can range from USD$25 to USD$300.
The added advantage of having a variable ND filter is that you are able to have a variety of different stops within just one filter. There are also usually indicators on the variable ND filters to be able to help you navigate the different ranges on the filters. It is definitely much more convenient compared with getting one only for a particular stop of ND.
Filter shapes
ND filters come in two forms — square and circle.
For square filters, you would need an adapter in order to fit it on your lens, while circle filters are able to be mounted directly on the lens. All you have to do is place the ND filter in front of the lens and screw it in.
Conclusion
I hope by now you are convinced that having an ND filter is quintessential to your photography and film making game. Be it getting an amazing shot of the night sky or making video motion look smooth and natural, ND filters are an important part of your gear lineup.
So the next time you want to take a long exposure shot, be sure to invest in a good ND Filter.
