Singh-Ray Vari-ND

B

Bob Gruen

Well-known member
Just ran across the Singh-Ray website and a product called the Vari-ND, comes in an 82mm size, perfect for the HVX. Anyone have direct experience with it?

It seems to me that if it works well it would be a great solution for shooting with the camera iris wide open, minimizing the DoF that the stock lens can achieve. This interests me as I will be doing some exterior interval photography in which both the camera and the target object will be moving relative to each other. I'd like to use the camera's auto focus; the background will be more than 12 feet behind the target which will be 1 to 24 inches from the camera. The good part is dial down the light, the bad news is the price: $390.

The other solution is a Cokin P series filter system, which has ND2, ND4, and ND8, which is 1 stop, 2 stops, and 3 stops. The camera has an ND8 and a ND64 (6 stops?). So buying an ND2 and an ND4 gets you one stop increments from 1 to 9. Cost would be under $80, but a lot of people seem to think that the Cokin filters are pretty low quality. Also, an ND1 (1/2 stop) does not seem to be available.

Has anyone used the Singh-Ray? Anyone have a favorite brand of filter that is better than Cokin? A high qualty ND1, ND2, and ND4 for under $200 would really fit the bill.

Thanks,

Bob
 
The vari-ND is, as I understand it, two linear polarizers. As you rotate one, it interacts with the other and becomes more and more opaque. Seems like a clever enough idea, but my question would be -- does that mean it's always acting as a polarizer? I would think so, and if so, I would question what would happen if you shot outdoors; depending on which direction you pointed the camera, the polarizer would have more or less effect. Might end up doing things you didn't want.

Cokin doesn't have the best rep. Tiffen circular filters are okay, nothing special. Same with Hoya HMC. Singh-Ray is supposed to be pretty good, as are B+W and Heliopan.

The camera's built-in filters are an ND.9 and an ND1.8, three stops (1/8 the light) and six stops (1/64 the light).
 
That seems to be another wierd thing about Cokin, their naming convention does not seem to match the rest of the manufacturers...

So a pair of B+W 82mm #101 .3s combined with the internal NDs would get you 1-6 F-Stop reductions.

OR

A single ND.3, ND .6, and ND.9 would also get you 1-6 F-Stop reductions.

So the question is, how good are the internal ND filters?

Bob
 
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