- One of the best ways to level up
the quality of your videos
is to start using ND filters.
But if you're anything like me
that might mean you've been using
sort of a low end inexpensive filter for a while
which is fine but now
maybe you're ready to invest some money
in a really high quality filter.
Not long ago I made a video
where I reviewed this right here,
the PolarPro Peter McKinnon Edition Variable ND.
And in that video I said that in my experience,
these are the best ND filters I've ever used.
It's a huge step up from something like a $20 or $30 filter
that you just might find online somewhere.
Now there are two versions of this filter,
there's the two to five stop version
which is the one that I reviewed in my other video.
But there's also a six to nine stop version
and for my review I borrowed this one right here.
So this is not my filter, I'm borrowing it.
And in that video I said that
as much I love this one
since I'm somebody who loves to film
at a wide open aperture,
I would buy the six to nine stop version
personally if I were to get one
and I really wanted to get one.
Incredibly enough,
after that video came out
the folks at PolarPro sent me
the six to nine stop version
which now I have my very own
super high quality variable ND which is awesome.
So what I wanted to do now
is to compare the two to five stop
against the six to nine stop
and help you figure out which one would be best for you.
So the first thing is,
I mention the packaging in my review video
but I kinda glossed over it a little bit
'cause I didn't have the packaging
since I was borrowing it.
But this is really nice.
I mean on the back of it
you got, you know, the whole little about section,
you got Peter McKinnon's picture which
I think is really cool not just as a fan
but just as, you know,
it's just really cool to see somebody
from like the online community
receive this kind of legitimacy.
I think that that's amazing.
The boxes close with nice magnets.
You open it up you got one of Peter's photographs.
And then inside you have the filter itself.
There's this slim Defender cap.
This is actually really helpful and super cool.
The filters themselves come in this metal magnetic case
which I talked about in my last video.
There's the beautiful filter
and then under the foam in the packaging
you've got a soft travel pouch.
So basically this thing would be like invincible
once you put it in there.
And then you also have a cleaning cloth
which has another one of Peter's photos on it.
So he did a lot of really cool branding stuff
in this partnership with PolarPro.
But beyond the really nice branding
and the packaging and all that
is a really nice filter.
So let's take a look at this
and explain why you would wanna choose
one of these over the other.
Now this is not a which is best video
because neither of these is best.
They're totally different,
they serve entirely different purposes.
So right off the bat,
just to give you an idea of which filter
might be better for you
this is just my very non-scientific opinion
on the differences between the two.
The two to five stop filer
is great if you're somebody who wants to film
at apertures above 2.8.
It's really good if you're going in and outdoors,
maybe you're filming an event
that's in the daytime
but you're bouncing back and forth
between indoor conditions and outdoor conditions.
It's great just for lower light,
not low light but stuff like afternoon, evening.
And it is also the less expensive filter.
It sells usually for about $250.
The six to nine stop filter
is great if you're somebody like me
who loves to film with an aperture wider than 2.8.
I love 1.4 and that's a really wide aperture
so that means it's easier to maintain that 150th of a second
shutter speed to keep your movement looking natural.
It's great if you wanna take photos
using long exposures in the daytime
but because it does offer more ND
and there's just, I don't know,
a little more oomph behind it,
it is a little more expensive
and it usually sells for about $300.
So based on that and the performance
between these two filters,
that's what's really gonna determine
which one is best for your needs.
Of course, if you got the budget
you could just go and buy both of them
and then you're all set
but for most people spending $500 or $600 on two filters
is pretty extreme and you probably
at least wanna start with one or the other.
If you watched my review video,
you'll know that one of the reasons
the PolarPro filters are a little more expensive
is because they protect your image quality
in a way that sometimes less expensive filters
just aren't able to do.
So if you've got your camera
with your wonderful lens on it
and then you're gonna put another piece of glass
in front of that high quality lens
what you don't want is for that glass
to deteriorate the image quality.
And with less expensive filters
that use less high quality materials,
sometimes that's just a side effect of that.
You get glares,
the biggest thing is that you get this cross-polarization
pattern especially in a filter like my cheap one
which goes from two to eight stops,
that's just a wide range.
And you have two pieces of glass going
back and forth between this filter.
One of the reasons PolarPro chose
the six to nine stop and the two to five stop
is to avoid that cross-polarization.
So no matter what even in the brightest conditions
you're not gonna have that issue
of vignetting or a dark x pattern showing up
and potentially ruining some of your shots.
Before we get into the full test,
here's a quick look at some of the differences.
This is the two to five stop filter set to two
and this is the six to nine stop filter set to six.
So this is the least amount of ND
that each filter offers.
You can see two versus six is quite a difference
and if I change that,
if I turn this one all the way up to five
they're much closer now
but then this one can go all the way to nine
and now you've got five versus nine.
It might be tough to see in an indoor situation
but this one is significantly darker.
So between the two filters
you have a range that goes from minimal neutral density
to pretty intense filtration taking place.
Now it's a little silly to compare ND filters indoors
so it's probably better to go outside
and compare the two of these in much brighter conditions.
I waited 'til it was like as bright as it could be
and it's painfully bright outside.
This is the 6D which I had to turn the aperture,
close the aperture all the way to F11
which I would normally never wanna do.
And this is the R with my 24 millimeter 1.4
but in order to make the R work at all right now
I have to turn the shutter speed up to 3200
if I wanted to keep that shallow depth of field.
And normally I would never wanna film that way
because it doesn't make the motion look good at all.
So I actually have the three filters,
there's the two to five stop,
the six to nine stop,
and then I also have my cheapo Amazon $30 filter as well.
So you can kinda see the difference
between how these things work.
So for example, right now on the R
if I turn the shutter speed to 150th of a second
which is where I would normally want it
this is what it looks like.
That doesn't look amazing.
What I'm actually going to do
is throw this filter, my cheapo one onto the 6D,
there we go make that look a little better.
And you might notice some vignetting on that filter.
And then over here
on the R we will start with the two to five stop.
So right now on here we have ISO at 100,
the shutter speeds at 150th of a second
and the aperture is at 1.4
and as you can see I am entirely blown out.
So let's take this two to five stop filter
and throw it on here.
So here's two stops and here's five stops.
That actually looks pretty good,
five stops is pretty darn usable
but that's as much ND as this filter's gonna give me.
So even here if you look at like my hand,
the side of my face right here,
it's still overexposed even with this filter.
That's where the six to nine stop comes in.
So this is the six to nine stop filter,
this is at six stops
and if I go all the way to nine
now I actually have the opposite problem,
it's way too dark.
To get something that I like right now,
something that I think looks pretty decent
I am actually at about seven stops.
Just in this specific case if you want to be a maniac
and film at 1.4 the two to five stop filter's
just not gonna give you enough ND
to make that happen whereas the six to nine will.
But here let's film a couple other examples.
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It's kind of interesting with the cheapest filter
is if I twist it in front of the lens
you can see the cross-polarization coming and going.
But when I rotate the six to nine stop even at nine,
it doesn't really change.
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I know that buying filters sometimes
doesn't seem like the most exciting way
to spend your hard earned money on camera gear
but they really do make an incredible difference.
And one of the things with camera gear
is for the most part you get what you paid for
especially if you're dealing with the
sub $100 to, you know, several hundred dollar price range
the jump in quality can be pretty enormous
and the difference between these filters
and some of the lower end ones is quite massive.
So if you're able to do it reasonably it's worth investing
in something like these PolarPro filters
to really help improve the overall quality
of your videos and your photos.
Definitely check out my full review video
where I go in-depth about why
I absolutely love these ND filters.
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