ND Filter issue

[laura-ashford]

Well this is probably the wrong forum to which I am sorry if that is the case. I recently have wanted to explore long exposure photography in the day [although not blinding sunlit conditions] and invested in an ND filter.. a Hoya Pro1 Digital ND x 16 to be exact and to be honest... it is pants. I even stacked it with my UV filter hoping for something and just ended up the filters temporarily refusing to let go of one another!!

I was wondering if someone could explain why and an alternative or another filter I could stack it with to help in my new exploration into photography.

Thank you so much!!!

[wave01]

what exactly was the problem

[laura-ashford]

Haha... sorry... my mind is all over the place today... basically the photographs are still coming up as light as if I had never put the filter on. I was hoping to dramatically reduce light entering the camera without venturing out in the evening [logistically with a baby this is virtually impossible]... so, in effect, cheat light?

But I set my camera up, put the filter on and it's like taking photos without a filter. It annoys me as I can normally work these things out.

[markgozz]

Originally Posted by laura-ashford

Haha... sorry... my mind is all over the place today... basically the photographs are still coming up as light as if I had never put the filter on

The filter does reduce the light entering the camera by 4 stops but that doesn't mean your images will come out darker it just means that the shutter will stay open for longer , your camera will always try to expose the image correctly by changing the shutter speed or aperture or ISO unless your shooting in manual .

To get a darker image you will need to under expose your shots by dialing in some negative exposure compensation , usually these filters are used to get a longer exposure to capture motion blur in scenes like flowing water , fast moving clouds , waving fields of corn etc .

Could you tell us how your using it and the camera settings your using .

Mark

[laura-ashford]

Originally Posted by markgozz

The filter does reduce the light entering the camera by 4 stops but that doesn't mean your images will come out darker it just means that the shutter will stay open for longer , your camera will always try to expose the image correctly by changing the shutter speed or aperture or ISO unless your shooting in manual .

To get a darker image you will need to under expose your shots by dialing in some negative exposure compensation , usually these filters are used to get a longer exposure to capture motion blur in scenes like flowing water , fast moving clouds , waving fields of corn etc .

Could you tell us how your using it and the camera settings your using .

Mark

Well I am on Manual, ISO of 100 and I started AV at 14 and went up to 32... it's like nothing is wanting to work and I've just been looking at my camera again and it doesn't seem to want to autofocus on any of my lenses?! Maybe my camera is about to pop to the fluffy clouds??

[StephenBatey]

The purpose of a neutral density filter is to let less light through the lens. That doesn't mean that the photos will come out any darker, any more than photos taken indoors by natural room lighting come out darker than those taken on a sunny beach at midday. The art of exposure is to get the right image density, and your meter is trying to do that. And succeeding, as you can't see a difference.

The reason for using a neutral denisty filter is to allow you to get the correct exposure, but use either a wider aperture (for less depth of field) or a longer shutter speed (to remove people from scenes or blur things).

If you are manually stopping down your lenses, you're probably coming up against the problem that autofocus doesn't work at small apertures - typically f/5.6. I'm assuming that the lenses are stopped down, and not relying on the lens closing down when you make the exposure.