Will the Singh-Ray Vari ND filter vignette on the 20mm f1.7 pancake lens?

F

Filmkid2003

Well-known member
Hey everyone. I want to shoot with my 20mm f1.7 pancake lens outside on a bright sunny day at 1/50th shutter and anywhere from f1.7 to f3.2 aperture. I am planning on buying the regular size (NOT the thin mount) Singh-Ray Vari ND filter and I need to know if there will be any vignetting with it on this lens. I would be getting the 77mm and a 46mm to 77mm step up ring. Thanks.
 
Don't know about the Singh Ray but the lightcraftworkshop FaderND doesn't show any visible vignetting on my Panacake, even stood off a bit by a glassless Tiffen spacer and a fotodiox 46mm-52mm step-up ring. Works great, wouldn't shoot bright outdoor video without it.
 
No vignetting at all but it's a slightly softer picture when shooting wide open with the Fader ND. I think the Singh Ray is better quality, should be for the price. The 20mm is a pretty sharp lens so be prepared for it not to be as sharp. I did shoot with this at the weekend with a 50mm 1.4 wide open and almost had the Fader at max. The picture was slightly soft but it's a trade off if you want shallow depth of field on a sunny bright day.
 
Thanks, guys. I read in another forum that people were complaining that the Vari Nd filter makes the image look bad at maximum strength, which I guess would be 8 stops. They said that its not a good idea to go past 5 stops on the filter. Is this true? I'm beginning to have second thoughts if this is true. Especially since it is $340. I'm thinking about just getting a B+W ND filter if this is the case.
 
My advice is to stop reading forums and taking anonymous comments as fact. Buy a FaderND from lightcraftworkshop on eBay. They cost $70 shipped and are excellent. Soft? Not to my eyes. Play with it, learn with it, judge for yourself.

When I was researching this topic I read all kinds of contradictory anonymous crap about these adjustable neutral density filters. The Singh Ray is crap, lightcraftworkshop is crap, you can make one yourself for three bucks, this one is plastic, that one is a cheap knockoff, they're both made by the same Chinese guy, they soften the image, no they don't they sharpen it, no they don't, oh yeah you Nazi, who you calling Nazi you queer, insert soccer horn buzzing here. Trying to get to the bottom of this subject is like taking a long walk on a Moebius strip.

Just buy the $70 one on eBay and mess around with it. I guarantee you will know more about the subject, and take more amazing videos and stills in bright light with your lens wide open, then the entirety of the yammerers.

FaderND is one of the best things I've gotten for my GF1. Between that, a Canon FD 50mm, and Vitaliy's firmware hack my camera's shooting video light years better than it did when I bought it.
 
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Do the variable ND filters use the same polarizing principle as a pair of stacked circular + linear polarizer filters? If so, I'd think the lack of a polarizing angle adjustment in the variable ND filter would produce a random polarizing effect, depending on how far you screwed the filter into the lens?
 
shaveblog said:
My advice is to stop reading forums and taking anonymous comments as fact. Buy a FaderND from lightcraftworkshop on eBay. They cost $70 shipped and are excellent. Soft? Not to my eyes. Play with it, learn with it, judge for yourself.

When I was researching this topic I read all kinds of contradictory anonymous crap about these adjustable neutral density filters. The Singh Ray is crap, lightcraftworkshop is crap, you can make one yourself for three bucks, this one is plastic, that one is a cheap knockoff, they're both made by the same Chinese guy, they soften the image, no they don't they sharpen it, no they don't, oh yeah you Nazi, who you calling Nazi you queer, insert soccer horn buzzing here. Trying to get to the bottom of this subject is like taking a long walk on a Moebius strip.

Just buy the $70 one on eBay and mess around with it. I guarantee you will know more about the subject, and take more amazing videos and stills in bright light with your lens wide open, then the entirety of the yammerers.

FaderND is one of the best things I've gotten for my GF1. Between that, a Canon FD 50mm, and Vitaliy's firmware hack my camera's shooting video light years better than it did when I bought it.
Click to expand...

+1. You hit the nail on the head. The Fader is the single best accessory for the GH1 that I've purchased (followed closely by the Nikkor/MFT adapter). I'm sure it's not perfect, but I haven't seen any problems with it. A general rule is that Polarizers will have problems with long lenses. I've never used mine on anything longer than a 50mm and have been pleased as punch with it. One guy tried to convince me they are terrible by showing some still using a 400mm (!) lens. So, maybe you might want to avoid using it with a 400! Harha.
 
I have no idea whether the FaderND is the same thing as a stacked circular/linear polarizer. I've seen comments that say yes, other that say no. If I ever saw any problems with the image at any setting from ND2 all the way to ND-400, I'd be motivated to dig further. But I don't. It just works. Kills the light without spectrum prejudice. It does this a little bit, or a lot, depending on how far you twist the dial.
 
Ron Rodenmeyer said:
+1. You hit the nail on the head. The Fader is the single best accessory for the GH1 that I've purchased (followed closely by the Nikkor/MFT adapter). I'm sure it's not perfect, but I haven't seen any problems with it. A general rule is that Polarizers will have problems with long lenses. I've never used mine on anything longer than a 50mm and have been pleased as punch with it. One guy tried to convince me they are terrible by showing some still using a 400mm (!) lens. So, maybe you might want to avoid using it with a 400! Harha.
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Yep, I use mine all the time with a 50mm Canon and it's brilliant. Haven't gone longer than that though, and don't plan to. Best $70 I've spent on this camera, by far.
 
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