I'm on a very long and steep learning curve with ND filters. After today I'm a little confused as to where my use may be.

We had some rain last night and I thought Somersby Falls may be worth a look, but the heavy rain we had obviously didn't fall in that area.

It did however give me an opportunity to do some testing, and as I said in the intro, the results surprised me and maybe also confused me.

The shots below were all with the D800 and a Nikon AF-S 28mm f1.8G. They were not all taken from the exact same spot but fairly close proximity. I've cropped them all to a similar aspect, tried to bring the exposure to a comparable level and they have had minimal PP.

This shot was with no filter, ISO200, f13 at 3sec.

No Filter.jpg

This one was with an el cheapo 3 stop filter, ISO100, f13 at 3sec

Cheapie 3 stop.jpg

The third was with a B+W F-PRO ND 3.0 (8 stop). I had to run the Purple Hue slider off the page to get rid of the purple cast in one spot, and it does not seem to pick up the greens either. I'm thinking it may not be a genuine filter with that performance.

B+W 3.0.jpg

I've added this one to show what the B+W looked like SOOC.

B+W SOOC.jpg

To my eyes, the first shot, no filter, is the pick of the bunch, and seems to indicate that you can get the milky water effect without a ND filter. The second shot lacks the clarity of the first, and the third shot with the B+W filter had me shaking my head. The purple hue seemed to get worse the longer the exposure.

I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of those experienced in the use of ND filters.