The B+W ND 110 Filter

Carrigman

The B+W ND 110 filter reduces exposures by a massive 10 f stops. It transmits only 0.1% of light. It thus allows long exposures on a bright day, as in this test shot (a 4 second exposure). (Its principal field of application is the observation and documentation of industrial processes with extreme brightness, such as steel furnaces, incinerators, glowing filaments in halogen- and other bulbs). I only got it on Firday so it will take a while to get used to it. So far, so good.

If anyone is interested it will set you back €77 from www.fotosense.co.uk

I came across the filter in Dublin photographer Mark Kelly's work. See http://www.flickr.com/photos/broad_sword/ for some excellent examples of its application.

broad_sword

Thanks for your kind words on my pics John. I only recently got my B+W filter too and am still getting used to it. Wish I picked mine up from fotosense though..... I got mine from B&H in NYC and think by the time you include paying the UPS guy the tax on delivery, I paid almost double what you paid!

Calina

I'm tempted. Very, very tempted.

broad_sword

Go on.... you know you want to

Calina

A 40D and a Photoshop licence in the last month with a surf trip to Fuerteventura in May says I don't.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh

actually the surf trip to Fuerte probably says I do.


ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Valentia

I meant to comment on this on your Flickr. Cracking shot. It looks like the water is boiling and has an Icelandic feel to it. The filter sounds like an interesting idea, though I did get a set of ND filters some time ago that I haven't given a proper workout yet.

kjt

Lovely shot John. How often do you think you'll use the filter?

Carrigman

kjt wrote: »

Lovely shot John. How often do you think you'll use the filter?

Not a lot to be honest. It will be useful for the odd "different" shot, I hope. It needs some concentration to get the best out of it. For a start, you have to use a tripod of course. You compose with the filter off the lens and you have to switch off autofocus as the filter is practically opaque to the naked eye. Set the camera to manual metering, choose a small f/stop like f/11 or f/16 and note the exposure time. Say it's f/16 @ 1/250 sec. Put the filter on the lens. Now calculate the exposure (the camera WILL NOT do it for you) knowing that you are losing 10 f/stops. In this example it will be f/16 @ 4 secs. Bracket to make sure (and shoot in RAW).

Mark Kelly gave me a useful link to an exposure calculator at: http://www.8thcross.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/filter-tables.pdf and it makes working out the exposures easy.

So, it's not the kind of filter to use when birding!

Mellor

How much would I pay for a 4-6 stop ND filter

YogiBear

I'm going to have a look at these definitely. I took some landscape with lots of cloud that I thought would look great but when I uploaded them to computer yesterday they were really disappointing.
I read about them before in one of the PhotoPlus mags that I get and have been meaning to look up more about them.
I'm a better photoshopper than I am at photography (after a year of spending most of my time playing with photoshop instead of actually focusing on camera).. so thanks for the info!

Borderfox

Lovely shot and great use of the filter

YeahOK

John, you make these shots look effortless! Was in Ballycotton over the weekend and didn't manage a single keeper.:rolleyes: Mind you weather was brutal! (or at least that's my excuse, ahem)

deaddonkey

i want a ND filter just so i can slap fast film in my camera, which looks good, but still use the lens at f/4 (max 1/500s shutter speed)

that is what they do, right?

extopia

What's this, some kind of mutual admiration society?

Mellor

Basically it allows you do move X number of stops, X being the stop number of the filter.

So, you can either open up the aperature by a X stops, or slow the shutter speed by X stops, or combo of both (and iso too)


So say you are shooting at f/4 and 1/500
A suitable filter will allow you to go to 1 sec shutter speed

jackdaw

What does the ND stand for ?

kjt

jackdaw wrote: »

What does the ND stand for ?

Neutral density