ND filters

[deathrox]

I bought a set of ND filters/ Is it normal for them to produce "milky" images?

Fade compensation PP appears to remove it.

[ricktas]

No. Generally not. When you look through them just held up, do they just appear smokey coloured, or do they also appear smokey (hazy)? Looking through them they should just appear to darken the scene, sort of like looking through sunglasses, but the scene should not be blurry etc?

[Plays With Light]

I bought a set of ND filters/ Is it normal for them to produce "milky" images?

Fade compensation PP appears to remove it.

DR, can you define "milky" and what does the second line mean? I don't understand it. What is fade compensation?

[deathrox]

DR, can you define "milky" and what does the second line mean? I don't understand it. What is fade compensation?

I'll try and post a before and after.

- - - Updated - - -

Sorry fade correction.

1st one with 8+4+2 ND filters no PP.



2nd one. Exact same image with "Fade correction" @ maximum.





It wasn't windy enough to get the effect I wanted. But I'm not sure if these are propper ND filters or not.

- - - Updated - - -

No. Generally not. When you look through them just held up, do they just appear smokey coloured, or do they also appear smokey (hazy)? Looking through them they should just appear to darken the scene, sort of like looking through sunglasses, but the scene should not be blurry etc?

I've posted a without and with PP.
What is your opinion?

[ricktas]

Looks to me like you do not have NEUTRAL density filters. They should not make the scene look brown. All they should do is lower the light hitting the lens/sensor, with no tint to the resultant photo.

What brand are these ND filters?

[Plays With Light]

I'll try and post a before and after.

- - - Updated - - -

Sorry fade correction.

1st one with 8+4+2 ND filters no PP.

http://www.henrywho.xyz/temp/DSC_4500P.jpg

2nd one. Exact same image with "Fade correction" @ maximum.



http://www.henrywho.xyz/temp/DSC_4500Pp.jpg

It wasn't windy enough to get the effect I wanted. But I'm not sure if these are propper ND filters or not.

Okay, fade correction is a tool in Paint Shop pro. Gotcha now.

You have unfortunately bought cheap, poor grade ND filters. They are probably made of resin and not optical grade glass. Most of them usually cast colours, browns/oranges, magentas and blues of some sort. Good quality optical glass ND filters (Format-Hitech for example) will not give you colour casts at all. But, be prepared to pay for them! Like anything photographic with glass attached, it's a matter of paying for what you get.

I used to have a Lee 10 stop ND filter and it drove me mad with its blue colour cast, I could only use it by making all my images black and white to cover it up. Now, I use the Format-Hitech Firecrest filters.

With ND filters, you need around 16 stops to get a shot that keeps the shutter open for 4.5 to 5 minutes, if you want some serious cloud blurs. For the ocean water to turn milky, you need a 10 stopper as a minimum. For a waterfall, you don't even need an ND filter, just play with your shutter speed and aperture to get anywhere from 1/20 to half a second shots, depending on how milky you like the water to be and the flow rate of the water, any longer than that and you're entering the world of the surreal, but some folks love that stuff.

[Geoff79]

Would using the three filters at once enhance the muddy, brown effect too?

Is it as obvious, Deathrox, when you just use - for example - the single ND8 filter?

Unfortunately budget restrictions have always left me with low quality ND filters too, and 90% of them have only been used once. Always due to colour cast.

I’ve recently resurrected a ND8 filter, but it gives a pretty strong red cast which is near impossible to manage.

The one exception seems to be my recently acquired ND100 filter, which doesn’t seem to offer too much colour cast.

Alex’s idea is good, though. If the colour is rubbish, stock up on images for your black and white portfolio.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mikew09]

I can say from experience grad filters (ND filters) should not have any impact on IQ apart from allowing to control the light intensity over the frame as already mentioned. Sometime ago before I moved to portrait photos I used them a lot and never once had IQ issues. I cannot remember the brand but were a midrange brand at reasonable cost and as stated, no IQ issues. Having said that, long ago I bought a flea bay CP filter and UV filter for my lens and had not end of IQ issues. My images were soft and focus sometimes missed target and being a newbie, had no idea until a guy at a camera shop suggested it may be the cheap filters - he was right.

The other thing to be aware of is there is a process where some plastic filter cases bleed a chemical from the case that when in a concealed container adheres to the filter coating - I actually had this happen with a CP filter and the effect is very much like what you are describing. If this is the case and they have sat on the shelf long enough its a possibility. More likely just low grads filters though as suggested.

[deathrox]

Looks to me like you do not have NEUTRAL density filters. They should not make the scene look brown. All they should do is lower the light hitting the lens/sensor, with no tint to the resultant photo.

What brand are these ND filters?

They are supposed to be Cokin but I feel they may be a cheap rip off. After PP there is not colout cast, all I'm doing is running the built-in Fade-correction. The scene is quite brown, I have a picture with no filters. They don't look to dissimilar.

[Plays With Light]

They are supposed to be Cokin but I feel they may be a cheap rip off. After PP there is not colout cast, all I'm doing is running the built-in Fade-correction. The scene is quite brown, I have a picture with no filters. They don't look to dissimilar.

Unfortunately, the Cokin filters are made of resin, not optical grade glass.

[dacar]

Another thought...
Make sure you cover the viewfinder eyepiece completely when you make long exposures. light might be leaking in and altering the exposure and contrast.

... It's amazing what you learn from experience...

[deathrox]

Another thought...
Make sure you cover the viewfinder eyepiece completely when you make long exposures. light might be leaking in and altering the exposure and contrast.

... It's amazing what you learn from experience...

I'll see if this makes a difference.
Thanks.

[ricktas]

eyepiece not being covered will sometimes result in lens flare and light leak, but rarely would it be this brown colour. Another thought, you have not set some custom white balance in camera and forgotten it was set?

[Dylan & Marianne]

Generally speaking ND filters and GND filters are something where it's good to try deciding if its a path you want to head down
The cheap stuff unfortunately has a lot of the issues listed above including what I think happened to your image
There are plenty of brands that are truly neutral and don't give colour cast nor affect optical quality of the image adversely but they are usually quite dear (about 200 a filter)
I wrote a guide for Australian Photography magazine here which you may (or may not) find useful ;

http://www.australianphotography.com...what-nd-filter