{"id":168,"date":"2010-02-26T11:53:46","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T16:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/?p=168"},"modified":"2010-02-26T11:53:46","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T16:53:46","slug":"the-neutral-density-filter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/the-neutral-density-filter\/","title":{"rendered":"The Neutral Density Filter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A neutral density filter is a screw on attachment for your lens that blocks some portion of the incoming light without (hopefully) affecting the light in other ways. It&#8217;s kind of like having a pair of sunglasses for your camera. ND filters come in different strengths (according to the amount of light they let through), different sizes (depending on the lens you&#8217;re using), and different glass qualities (just like how some lenses are better than others.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\/photos\/jonbeard\/3868094676\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2619\/3868094676_9fe65e42d4.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you do with an ND filter?<\/strong><br \/>\nPrimarily, the ND filter is used to increase the shutter speed without increasing your F-stop and\/or overexposing the shot. Common examples are waterfalls with the cotton candy water look and shots with the misty looking waves around ocean rocks and piers. With some experimentation you&#8217;ll find more creative uses like taking a picture of busy places without having the people\/traffic show up or shots of someone looking sharp in the midst of a sea of blurry people.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\/photos\/jonbeard\/3798656663\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2641\/3798656663_4359deafa4.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Which one should you get?<\/strong><br \/>\nThese things aren&#8217;t cheap so you&#8217;ll want to give some thought to the type of shooting you intend to do.\u00a0 I wanted to do very long exposures during the day using my 24-70mm so I went with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/B-3-0-Neutral-Density-Filter\/dp\/B0012LO1UG?&amp;camp=212361&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=jonbearphot-20&amp;creative=380737\">B&amp;W 3.0 ND Filter<\/a>. The 3.0 is a 10 stop filter, or said another way, lets in just .1% of the light (so it&#8217;s more like a welding mask instead of sunglasses.) With that filter I can easily get 5-10 minute exposures in daylight. The downside is that you can&#8217;t see anything through your viewfinder with the filter attached so I have to set up, compose the shot, and then put the filter on trying to be very careful not to mess up the framing\/focus.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\/photos\/jonbeard\/3920999661\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2617\/3920999661_f52c4b9a9c.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Note: There are some variable ND filters out there where you can rotate them to make them lighter\/darker (two circular polarizers screwed together?), but I&#8217;ve not seen them in action and don&#8217;t know about their quality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A neutral density filter is a screw on attachment for your lens that blocks some portion of the incoming light without (hopefully) affecting the light in other ways. It&#8217;s kind of like having a pair of sunglasses for your camera. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/the-neutral-density-filter\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photo-techniques"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189,"href":"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonbeard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}