has anyone used cokin filters for ND? or other recommendations!

T

thpriest

Active member
i need some ND filters for my 7D. i don't have money for the fader ND. are the cokin filters in a mount a good cheap alternative for video? what should i buy?
i need something i can go out and buy tomorrow, not over the internet.
any other recommendations are most appreciated.
thanks
 
Cokins are pretty much universally recognized as the worst filters on the market, which is why they're so profoundly cheap. If you want to go with the Cokin system, look at alternative filters such as Lee or Formatt.
 
I haven't used it but it looks pretty good. A solid ND and a graduated ND are two of the three most useful filters, the third being a polarizer.
 
thanks again! i guess what i meant to ask was whether a 0.6nd is enough or whether it's common to stack these. i'm coming from the video world where i had a couple of different nd's at the press of a button but i have no idea if 0.6 will do or if i need more. i live in spain where there's a lot of bright sunshine and i'll also be filming in northern scotland this weekend with a low but occasionally intense northern sun. i'd like to be able to shoot with a wide aperture, 1.8 to 2.8 at a shutter speed of 50 (for Pal).
once again, i appreciate your help and time
 
No, a .6 is not likely to be enough. On an HPX170 I would frequently use ND1/64, which is equivalent to three .6 filters stacked (or a 1.8 for a single filter).

ND filters are supposed to be perfectly neutral in color cast, but they usually aren't quite that neutral, so when you go stacking them you end up compounding the color shift.

You can easily tell how much ND you'd need; just go outside in the circumstances you want to shoot in, and shoot and see what f-stop you need to get proper exposure. If you are at f/2, great, you're done... but if you needed to be deeper than f/2, then however deep you need to be, is how much ND you need to get back to f/2. So if you ended up at f/16, then you'd need six stops of ND (ND 1.8) to get you all the way back up to f/2.
 
ouch! i've just seen the price of the lee starter kit. 270€!!
i think i'd rather get the fader ND.
i guess i'm going to need some kind of adaptor to adapt to different sized lenses
 
Step up rings are $7 apiece or less. So get the biggest Fader you can, that fits your biggest lens, and then get step-up rings as appropriate.

Don't forget that a Fader doesn't work well with wide-angle lenses.
 
thpriest said:
ouch! i've just seen the price of the lee starter kit. 270€!!
i think i'd rather get the fader ND.
i guess i'm going to need some kind of adaptor to adapt to different sized lenses
Click to expand...

Is the Fader ND a variable ND Filter? If so I guess it works the same way a polarizer works. How many stops is the Fader ND?

Are there other manufacturers of this type of ND filter?

I have a 4X4 matte box, where's a good place to get filters for it, OK, good and inexpensive as practicable?
 
Say, that's a nice mark-up. Wish I could trick my clients to accept 150% :cheesy:

On the other hand that's roughly the same price difference between Tiffen 4x4 filters in US and Sweden... :Drogar-Shock(DBG):
 
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