Video: Do you need expensive ND filters?
The world of Neutral Density (ND) filters can be a bewildering one - there's a huge variety of different density filters available, at a huge variety of prices. So what do you get for your money, and is it worth buying expensive filters?
In this eye-opening video, filmmaker Griffin Hammond and the team at Indy Mogul test a large variety of ND filters in different price tiers from $5 USD all the way to $580 USD.
The test of 23 ND filters looked at color and image quality, flare resistance, and their usefulness in timelapse situations. The team test a range of ND’s from a set of general purpose ND3 filters, to Variable Density Filters, to heavily graded ND10 filters for their use in time-lapse photography.
"While every type of ND filter has it’s own use, we mainly set out to see if the price tag really affected image quality, and whether variable ND’s were much worse than single glass ND’s," the team explain.
And the results? As you might expect, the more expensive filters do perform better, but this is only obvious when doing a side-by-side comparison.