Following the comment of PH Photography on the quality of the Fader ND, I decided to do more extensive testing. As I was stating in my original review, I was having great results while using the Fader ND in video mode with my 24-70 (main video lens).
So, today, I decided to review what I have shot so far in Iceland with the filter. Up until this morning, everything was shot with the 17-40L4 and was good enough to be put on the web at 720p. So I was having different results than what PH Photography was getting. Then, I reviewed the clips shot with the filter mounted on my 400L5.6. Oh boy!
These clips are not sharp at all. While very usable for web display in a downscaled window (as on Vimeo), the 100% crop was not satisfying at all.
I understand that using a variable filter at such a long focal range is not common so this might be the reason why so few people have reported the issue. That being said, I am getting very good results with my other lenses. If someone has a 400mm lens and a Sihn Ray, I would love to hear your results.
Now that I think about it, anyone else experienced sharpness issues with the Fader ND on a telephoto lens?
Should you forget about the Fader ND?
Fortunately, the Fader ND manufacturer is coming very soon with a revised version of the product which will be using much higher quality glass. Cant wait to test these out. Until then, I will not use the filter on any of my long focals.
Disclaimer: Light Craft Workshop is now a sponsor of Canon5dTips.com. If you read the sponsorship page, you know that I only agree to promote products that I actually use and love. So if it wasn’t good, I would not recommend you to buy one, as my painful Pocket Wizard TTL experience proved.
If you don’t know what a ND filter is or why you need one, take a look at this post on the subject (coming soon).
So you want to create a miniature effect like this :
Without having to buy one of these:
Easy! just download the (free for this week!) ShrinkRay plugin from Crumple Pop. Even if you don’t own FCP3 now, get it in case you decide to buy it later on! They also have a few other cool free FCP plugins, pay them a visit.
I prefer using this plugin to the Photoshop action filter because (1) I dont have to go into photoshop and (2) the controls are easier to manage.
Thanks to FinalCut Montreal for pointing out this promotion.
DISCLAIMER: these parameters were not discovered by me, I found them somewhere on the net and never wrote the URL. I will update the post if I ever find the URL again and give due credits.
Here is a quick tip on how to achieve a cross process look in Aperture without buying an expensive plugin (I am looking at your Silver Fx!).
What is cross processing? Because a picture is worth a thousand word, here are the before and after images.
Neat hein?
The result is very easy to achieve in Aperture. To do so, in the Level panel,
- select the Red channel and set the 3 values (B,G,W) to : 0,21, 0,53 and 0,92
- select the Green channel and set the 3 values (B,G,W) to : 0, 0,42 and 1
- select the Blue channel and set the 3 values (B,G,W) to : 0, 0,44 and 0,94
You can then save this as a preset for later use by clicking on the little gear on the top right of the panel and clicking on save.
Now, just dont over use this technique because it can grow old very quickly, like over cooked HDR… Oh and it tends to destroy skin color too so be careful!
Bruce released 3 very informative video on his website about how you can control the exposure of the Canon 5DMarkII using neutral density filters. The principle is simple: if there is too much light, the camera will close the aperture, which in turn will increase the depth of field. The solution is to use the filters to reduce the amount of light that goes into the camera, so it opens up (automatically) it aperture, and create a nice bokeh in the process.
Quick recap:
Video 1: shows the various filters and explanations
Video 2: explain the advantages of 4×6 filters vs 4×4
Video 3: example of the video captured
Over all the whole thing last about 20 minutes and it is a good investment if you want to shoot video with your 5D. Go and watch it! My only complain is that Bruce did not show the one thing I was interested to see: Depth of field changes controlled by the circular variable ND filter.
Note: you can also use a circular “normal” polarizer to do the job, it is just that the variations are between 0.5 and 2 stops so you will only see much of the difference if you are in medium lights.
