ND Filter

daryl wrote on 11/27/2007, 6:50 AM

Hey y'all. I have not done much to this point with an ND filter, built into the camera. Could someone explain to me how to use it for depth-of-field, like the nearby subject in focus and background out-of-focus?
Thanks in advance.

Comments

Grazie wrote on 11/27/2007, 7:05 AM

Simply put, the ND act like sunglasses on your camera. To get the BEST shallowest depth of field you/we need to have the aperture as wide as possible. Now, doing this on a bright day would be suicidal, so, to lower the light coming into the camera we use Neutral Density filters to do it. I have a grand sum of 0.9ND on my XM2. So to augment this I use a further 0.9 and if needed another 0.6. Add these together and that's like 2.4 of ND!

ND filters are our friends when we want to keep the aperture wide open.

Grazie

daryl wrote on 11/27/2007, 7:14 AM

GREAT! Thanks so much Grazie!

rs170a wrote on 11/27/2007, 7:22 AM

Daryl, keep in mind that you can use ND filters indoors as well.
The only "gotcha" is that they're typically part of the outdoor filter setting (unless you have separate filters like Grazie) so you'll have to do a white balance anytime you do this.

Mike

daryl wrote on 11/27/2007, 7:38 AM

Good point, thank ya sir.