Today I'm going to show you a new set of variable ND filters and how they can
help you when you're filming.
Now I'm not a huge fan of variable NDs and I usually
shoot both stills and film with fixed ND filters from being able to control the
polarization when I want to - just having less glass in front of the sensor
if you have the time fixed NDs are the way to go
however in a run-and-gun scenario when you have a very limited amount of time
variable ND filters are a huge time saver and can be the difference between
getting the shot and missing it the main issue I have with variable NDs
is that some of the companies market them as being a one-stop shop for both
Stills and video but in reality they're best suited for video and the better
companies will tell you this after my video on the magnetic filter system
which i think is great free will have sent me a set of they're variable NDs as
a lot of you were asking for them now because of the nature of variable nd
filters the ant magnetic but today I'm going to test them out to see how they
perform and for the record I'm not sponsored by free well and have no
affiliations to them I'm just interested in this product and if it's any good for
filming I'm gonna let you know about them unfortunately I don't have the
polar probe Peter McKinnon filters to test them against but nevertheless we'll
see how they do against not having any filters at all and against my tiffin
variable ND filter now for photography i'd always recommend fixed ND filters
and i've done a video on why i think this it's mainly because of that dreaded
X pattern however these filters don't show that X pattern they do this by
having hard stops in the filter and you can only rotate them by a certain amount
and this is really great because we don't get that horrible X pattern that I
keep going on about now if we take a closer look at these filters we've got
these grooves around the edges which makes them a lot easier to take on and
off they are screw on filters and like I said earlier they're not magnetic
filters now with all variable ND filters the
front element is bigger than the actual thread size so you can't use your
existing lens caps to get around this by providing you with a magnetic lens cap
so you can always protect that front element when your camera is in the bag
they come in a set of two filters although you can buy them separately the
standard day is a two to five filter and the bright day is a six to nine stock
filter so on a cloudy day you'd use the two to five stock filter and the six to
nine stock filter would be better for bright sunny days due to the physics of
these filters you will get the polarization effect as they are two bits
of polarized glass that let more or less light in when you rotate them so here
are some examples of how much of this effect you can see so first of all I
have the six to nine stop filter starting at nine stops I set movie mode
to aperture priority to keep an even exposure as I rotate to six stops there
is less of a polarization effect in the image looking at the screen grabs side
by side it actually copes really well and this is at 17 millimeters so a super
wide angle next this is the two to five stop filter i started at two stops and
rotated it to five stops again in aperture priority to keep a constant
exposure looking at the screen grab side by side this one does a really good job
at controlling that polarization now even though all variable ND filters have
this polarization to a certain extent if you do know about it even when you're on
a running gun shoot or you're filming a fast-paced event or subject they can
really help you get good exposure and you can kind of compensate for this
polarization effect now variable ND filters help in two ways when filming
you should always try and follow the 180 degree shutter rule if you don't know
what this is click on the eye in the corner or the link in the description
this is where your shutter speed should be half the frame rate I normally shoot
at 25 frames a second so my shutter speed should always be one fiftieth of a
second this is an example of a shot without the filter on where I'm
trying to get a shallow depth of focus on a sunny day my shutter is up to
around 1/4 thousandth of a second and it really does have that jittery staccato
look now if you're Jason Bourne in a fight scene this is fine but for
everyday filming this doesn't look great the second example is where I'm trying
to get the shutter speed down to one fiftieth of a second and I want to
follow that rule but with my aperture up to f-22 which isn't great it's still
over exposing the shot so on this third shot I have the
variable ND filter fitted I can choose my shutter speed and aperture and keep
them static then I just dial in the exposure with the variable nd so I don't
see those zebras and I know I have a good exposure well that's how I do it
anyway another good thing with variable n DS is if the exposure changes say if
you're at a location where the Sun is periodically going behind the clouds you
can quickly adjust the variable nd to suit the changing exposure with my
tiffin ND filter which is a little bit cheaper I can do a similar thing but
there are no hard stops and if it gets too bright where I need more than 5 to 6
stops of reduction in light this is when I start to see that X pattern this tends
to make the footage unusable but the free well filters as they do have the
hard stops built-in I don't have to worry about this at all
if it gets too bright for the 2 to 5 stop filter I just swap them out now the
6 to 9 stop filter is really good if you're using say are fast prime lens
they'll still give you the opportunity to use those really wide apertures while
still following the 180 degrees shutter rule as for any color shift in the image
due to the polarization you will get some color movement in them but free
will have done a pretty good job of controlling this mine gave a slightly
warmer image but when I alter the white balance to compensate I can get rid of
this as for the sharpness this is with the 2 to 5 stop filter and this is with
the 6 to 9 stop filter
and then this is without any filter at all the YouTube compression might have
hidden this a little bit on your monitor but there isn't much of a difference in
the sharpness they all do a really good job as for vini etting they seem to
control this very well I got the 67 millimeter set and I have it on the Tama
on 17 to 28 millimeter which has a 67 millimeter thread at 17 millimeters as
you can see there isn't a visible vignette normally I would get a bigger
set of filters but I was pleasantly surprised by this one thing that still
annoys me about these filters is that you have two of them the whole idea of a
variable ND is that you have one filter that covers all conditions but you still
have to change these when it gets too bright or when it gets too dark now this
is me being just a little bit picky and it's a much better option than having a
whole set of fixed NDS where you might have to keep changing them out or you
might have to keep changing your settings to suit the changing exposures
now they are ideal for run-and-gun shooters and because of those hard stops
you don't have to worry at all about that
X pattern as for having two filters due to the physics of how these work there
is no getting around this so you either have one filter that covers everything
but then goes into that horrible X pattern or you have two filters that
break it up and I'd much prefer to avoid the X pattern and have two filters after
using these for a couple of weeks I actually quite liked them I don't have
to worry about that X pattern I keep going on about and because of the
variable nature of them I can quickly change the exposure without having to
change any of my primary settings if you are switching between them and taking
them off and shooting without the filters it would be worth setting a
custom white balance profile on the day and to be honest if you're doing lots of
filming you should be doing this for every different lighting environment
anyway and what this means is that your footage will look a lot more consistent
you won't get that staccato look when it gets really bright and
you'll just be able to control the exposure a lot better so if you are
interested in these check out the link in the description below they have just
been released and I think they've got them on a special price saving a little
bit of money so go and check out that link I think they're fantastic for
running guns shooters where you have very little time to change setups but
when I have time I do prefer my fixed nd filters I suppose it's a bit like the
zoom vs. prime lens debates in the filter world
they both do different things well and whilst one tool might be better for a
certain scenario the other one will be better for other situations now what are
your thoughts on variable nd filters do you love them or do you hate them let me
know in the comments below and I'll see you next time