Singh-Ray Variable Density ND Filter - Feedback

Hi all,

A short time ago some of you were good enough to help me with the issues I
had with my "budget-priced" ND filter (ie "useless piece of cheap crap")
producing grossly unsharp images. I mentioned I'd dropped them in the bin
and ordered the variable density ND unit from Singh-Ray - Well it arrived a
week or 2 ago and I put it through it's paces over the weekend with some
flowing water shots - thought some of you might appreciate a few thoughts on
the unit ...

First up, it just "ooozes" quality - it looks nice - feels nice - and works
very much "as advertised". I wanted some long exposures at F11. Normal
metering at ISO 100 was giving me shutter speeds hovering around the 1 sec
mark. I took a few shots at this speed, but the results weren't even in the
ball park for what I was hoping to achieve. Popped on the Vari ND - went
manual - 30 sec @ F11 and just gave the filter a twist until the metering
indicated a standard exposure (I'd prefocused then switched to MF, even
though it would still probably have been fine with the filter on). Piece of
cake!

The Vari ND has a 2-Stop minimum - would have been nice if it could be made
a 0 stop minimum, then it could be left on the camera all the time, but
unfortunately that just not the way it is. Only other slightly negative
observation is that it comes in a fancy leather pouch - I'd personally feel
safer with it in a standard plastic twist-apart case (so it wouldn't get
scratched), although it's quite a thick unit - about the same as the Canon
500 close-up adaptor - so one of the thicker cases would be needed.

On a side note, I've been doing a bit of experimenting with stacking
multiple exposures recently (good technique for smoothing out high ISO
noise, but very useful at ISO 100 as I've found out when used vith different
blending modes ... With the Vari ND and Canon's programmable timer it's a
piece of cake to automate the whole thing --- I was able to get the camera
up on a tripod - set the timer to take 4x 30 sec exposures with 45 sec
inbetween (so the noise reduction could do it's thing) - then just go sit on
a rock for a few minutes whilst the camera did it's thing.

At the risk of being called a spammer again! I'd recommend the unit to one
and all - expensive little bastard, but then again so is a collection of
standard NDs

If anyone's got any questions about it just let me know.

Cheers,

 

What sort of situation was this? Isn't ISO 100 already pretty darn low
noise? Looks cleaner for very large prints?

 

What did you pay for it? I just visited the site and it's truly
intriguing. I would probably look at the 72mm and use it on my 72 and
55mm threaded lenses.

Does it polarize at all?

Thanks,
Alan

 

I've had my eye on one of those for some time now. The ARE expensive! But, as is usually the case with glass, it's probably worth it. I'm glad you like it, I'll have to move it up my priority list.

 

Hi Alan,

I paid USD 345 for the "non-slim" version - I assumed that the USD 395 slim
version would be like my slim Heliopan UV filters and not have an inner
thread (so can't mount any additional filters). With the "non-slim" version
I was able to attach a Heliopan UV for additional protection.

I understand that it's only available in 77mm, so you'd need an adaptor. I
asked about an 82mm variety to got with Canons new WA lens and was told
"Only 77mm for now - difficult to manufacture in larger sizes - but
obviously will review the situation when a large player like Canon enters
the market @ 82mm - (in summary) will see how many people ask for it".

I'm not sure what "polarising" is - but it works like 2 pair of polarising
sunglasses rotated relative to one another. It's a minimum of 2 stop down to
"more than 8 stop" - they say that it'll go beyond 8 stop, but that the
point where you might get some bars showing - can't comment further as I
didn't push it into that territory. Between 2 and 8 stops they claim that
there's no colour shifts and I've seen nothing to contradict this. Some
appeared a bit skeptical, but at the end of the day singh-ray have a
reputation for bloody good stuff - and from what I've seen it's well
deserved.

Cheers,

 

Hi Paul,

A wee bit of background ...

I was reading through the excellent (and free) PBase Magazine
(www.pbase.com/magazine) and came accross (about 3 issues ago) the work of 1
Sean T. McHugh. If you don't know of him already he's one of those enviable
chaps who - just when I think I'm starting to get a few things right -
demonstrates quite modestly that I don't know shit when it comes to
photography. (take a look at www.cambridgeincolour.com) and you'll see what
I mean.

In one of his tutorials he outlined a technique of reducing high-ISO noise
by stacking identical images - so I took 32 images and stacked them with
opacities ranging from 100 (bottom) to 50 to 33.3 to 25 to 20 percent etc. I
then flattened all 32 and compared it to just 1 taken at ISO 3200. Different
as night and day. The stacking reduced it to what looked visually like about
ISO 200.

Whilst doing my long exposure shots in the weekend I took 4 with the
intention of stacking them as per the above - like you say, 100 ISO is
pretty darn good, but I wanted to see what 4 stacked would do (if anything).
I got a little side-tracked when I tried playing with the blending - I
turned off the top 2 layers and blended the 3rd to the bottom with screen
blending at 50% opacity and all of a sudden it started to look rather nice -
so I did the same with the 2nd layer from the top (at 33.3%) and it looked
even better - then did the same with the top layer (at 25%) and it looked
better again. From there I only had to give it 1 minor global tweak
(levels/gamma I think) and it was looking great. I was fully expecting to
have to use curves to lift some of the shadow detail, but it did it nicely
for me - whilst at the same time not ruining a relatively large & delicate
area getting very close to clipping at the top end.

I tried a few variations but in the end it was pretty much just the above
plus a little dodging/burning and a slight hue tweak (one of these days I'll
remember to shoot a test shot with a grey card when shooting raw!)

To be honest I still don't understand many aspects of layer blending - but
it's definately something I'll experiment more with in the future. Final
print was a 22" x 33" canvas - with sharpening a'la Sean McHugh as well (I
gave it a global 300% at 0.3 pixel just to sharpen up the high-frequency
greener/plantaion - but liked the effect of around 50% @ 15 pixels -
something I hadn't tried until now (needs to be done at LOW magnifications
to see the global effect though - I had it about 1/2 size on a 24" Dell
wide-Screen).

 

Ah yes I have seen cambridgeincolour, and those are excellent tutorials.
I'm checking out the pbase stuff.

OK but why use a ND filter to make the exposures even longer? Moving
water or something?

 

I think they're a real treat. Just about every photography magazine I pick
up is crammed full of lists of prices from every man (and his dog) and a
never-ending tirade of questionable "reviews". But here we have a magazine
I'd pay decent money for - and it's free

Yes. Sometimes even something at high as 1/13th can give me the effect that
I'm after, but on this occasion even 1 to 2 seconds looked aweful - so I
aimed for 30 sec, which was just right. I guess the selling point of the
Vari ND is that you can simply dial up the F-Stop - Dial in the shutter
speed - then just Dial in the degree of reduction you need to get a good
exposure - no compromises needed