Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!
A variable ND Filter IMO is non-optional for effective use.
Doug Peterson (e-mail Me)
__________________
While I agree with most of what you say, I would suggest that perhaps the heliopan filters are not "exactly" two polarizers. It supposedly can be dialed down to a single stop ... two polarizers stacked will create more ND than that. How they do this I'm not sure, because my singh-ray minimum is 2 stops. Also, because of the way they are made the two elements are much closer together than two polarizers, helping with their optical quality.Variable ND filters are a marketing gag mostly. Get yourself 2 Polarizing filters (any brand- it really does not matter at all -why i´ll explain in a second) screw them together and you have your variable ND filter.
Now there are some problems: as with any filterstacking you´ll loose sharpness, this may not be important if you work only visually.
second you will get color shifts in some oversaturated parts of the image which may look completely different if you remove the filter and third there are interference effects, which may become clearly visible (as a cross in the middle of the image). This means for visual focusing only - maybe ok,
for work with taking images - forget about it.
And if you want to pay several hundred bucks for it then believe the marketing blubber, if you just want to try out buy yourself 2 cheapos from ebay for 20 bucks each(I have 2 x 86mm for my Hartblei 40 with stepdown rings for smaller sizes)
And it does NOT matter which brand you buy, this is physics, which is stronger than marketing..........
Greetings from Munich
Stefan Steib - HCam.de
PS - found this test comparison image in http://www.videotreffpunkt.com
Very strange test methodology - the aperture and shutter are fixed but ISO varies, which significantly affects IQ. The only sensible way to to it would be to alter shutter speed.PS - found this test comparison image in http://www.videotreffpunkt.com
. . . then forget about a bulky and delicate sliding adapter .. . . . . .
But to get back to the live preview task - If Phase has really managed to get this working in daylight - without shutter - RESPECT !
Then this is a major step forward !!!
regards
Stefan
Just loaded it on my IQ180 and gave it a quick spin on my tech camera --- I am happy to report Live View works as advertised. It's a long way from perfect, but far better than I had assumed it would be. Also, on my tech cam it was fully usable at f8 and f11 *without* an ND filter -- note this was in dimmer, early AM light, so maybe it will be problematic in bright Sun. Of course you loose the paper thin DoF of f4 or less for critical focus, but then I carry ND's with me anyway for when that's needed.
Pretty cool overall and gets a solid :thumbs: from me!