5D users and ND filters - please help!

[Peter Rush]

OK so I've just bought a Genustech variable ND to use with my 24-105mm EF lens - problem is I can't put it on or take it off with the lens hood attached, and if I take the hood off to put the filter on then the lens hood will not fit over the filter! I know a lot of you 5D users like to keep the shutter speed to 50 or 100/s and keep a nice shallow DOF so you must be using ND?

Anyone else come across this and come up with a workaround? Ideally I need to be able to pop it on for outside work and quickly take it off again when I go indoors - Maybe the Xume system but there's very little room to get my fingers inside the lens hood.

Pete

[Daniel Latimer]

This doesn't answer your question directly, but I am not opposed to bumping up the shutter speed higher than 50 or 100. I know it messes with the motion cadence, but it doesn't bother me enough to not do it. In a scenario where I don't have an ND filter, I would rather get the aperture I want than the perfect shutter speed.

[Brian David Melnyk]

i used a rubber wide angle hood that screwed onto my singh ray variable nd. it helped a bit with unwanted light and had good grip to use for turning the filter. but ultimately i mostly gave up using the filter as it was 77mm and vignetted badly on the 24-105 (should have bought the 82mm. expensive mistake!)
i found non-variable filters worked much better, but i mostly up the shutter speeds instead.
much quicker and better for color balance and matching other cameras if the action is not to quick...

[Adrian Tan]

I seldom use NDs at weddings -- I just crank the shutter up. I also seldom use lens hoods!

But you might like to consider a product like this -- http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/825818-REG/Flex_Lens_Shade_A001_Flex_Lens_Shade.html.

There's other alternatives to matte boxes and lens hoods out there as well.

[Matthias Claflin]

Does anyone use a matte box type rig? A lot of matte boxes have space for filters, and maybe a quicker way to add/remove ND filters. It's something I'm personally considering. Let me know what you think.

[Peter Rush]

Originally Posted by Adrian Tan

I seldom use NDs at weddings -- I just crank the shutter up. I also seldom use lens hoods!

But you might like to consider a product like this -- Flex Lens Shade Flex Lens Shade A001 B&H Photo Video.

There's other alternatives to matte boxes and lens hoods out there as well.

So you guys are quite happy with very high shutter speeds? - last wedding I was shooting at f2.8 in bright sunshine and shutter was like up at 4000! - There wasn't a lot of motion, mainly people milling around and chatting but any quick movement resulted in that stutter look that's not good. The inconvenience of faffing with a filter however (as I'm flitting between inside/outside) is something I could do without.

Pete

[Adrian Tan]

I always used to disparage Still Motion for recommending high shutter speeds, and I've got step up rings on all my lenses so that they can share the same filters (and lens caps), but I've come round to Still Motion's way of thinking. Just gradually stopped bothering with vari ND for weddings, especially considering: (a) there's been times when there was fog on the inside surface of the filter that ruined a shot and I didn't have time to clean it; (b) cleaning an extra piece of glass under pressure isn't fun anyway, even if it's just a matter of blowing dust off it; (c) going from inside church to outside -- tricky when having to put on ND while meanwhile things are happening fast; (d) vari ND does make skin look matte; (e) changing lens is annoying enough without having to change filter from one lens to another as well; (f) I dropped a vari ND, and was out of pocket AU$500...

In general, I'm trying to reduce amount of gear I have to fiddle with, because I definitely carry too much and am missing more moments than I like.

Since making that change, what I've found is that high shutter speed does add something to the type of weddings I shoot (where high shutter is usually only called for during congratulations and photoshoot), because it gives a different look to a sequence. So this is the sort of thing I sometimes think about: maybe it's good to shoot the entire bride prep on a tight lens, entire groom prep on wide lens, entire congratulations outside church with shallow depth and high shutter, entire photoshoot in slow motion with high shutter. You do get something from differentiating each sequence by look and therefore mood. If high shutter is associated with action and excitement, well, why doesn't this suit the mood immediately after the ceremony when people are hugging?

But, yes, if it's an outdoors ceremony, I generally shoot shallow and high shutter also. For one thing, I usually shoot with 3-5 cameras, and I'm not going to invest in proper ND for all of them.

I guess at the end of the day it depends on how you feel about the high shutter speed look, and also whether you have access to something like a C100 with built-in NDs anyway!

[Adrian Tan]

Originally Posted by Matthias Claflin

Does anyone use a matte box type rig? A lot of matte boxes have space for filters, and maybe a quicker way to add/remove ND filters. It's something I'm personally considering. Let me know what you think.

Have never used for weddings, and don't want to (too bulky/obvious for my taste), but certainly there's lots of boxes with a swing-away design that let you quickly access lens if you want to rotate a polariser or vari ND or change lens. I think there's also an O'Connor matte box with a clip on design that Vincent Laforet used to recommend, but I'm not quite sure how it works.

[Steve Burkett]

I stick by my variable ND. It's a good quality one and no noticeable colour shift at all. Yes its a pain to put on, so if I'm filming people moving from indoor to outdoor or in a rush, I'll use shutter priority, however that really amounts to 1 or 2 shots in a day. The rest I prefer not to suffer from high shutter. I just hate the look that makes movement look like a cross between stop motion and the old early cinema of 12fps. Then again I'm shooting 25p not 50i, which makes a big difference and 4K, which I think makes a small difference too in what you can get away with.

[Les Wilson]

Kudos Peter for not wanting to suffer production value for the limitations of a stills camera used for video. Short of using a proper matte box, I was happy with attaching a rubber shade to the ND filter. It in effect, gives you the missing third ring of Canon lenses. They *may* be a compromise on shade effectiveness and vignetting at wide angles.

There are magnetic types of filters that are expensive but you did save all that money by getting a stills camera instead of one with built-in ND and making up for missing function makes sense to me to be what that money should be spent on. I doubt there are variable ones though. When I used fixed ND, I let my 5D adjust the ISO automatically and use exposure compensation to fine tune it.

Operating the filter inside a fixed hood can be difficult. For that, I keep a pencil in my pocket and use the eraser end to turn the filter. It takes practice to do it while looking in the VF but nothing's perfect. YMMV

[Peter Rush]

Actually Les it's the Sony NEX EA50 which is a camcorder with a large format sensor. Sony, in their infinite wisdom omitted (no doubt to keep at a price point) ND filters. I use it with my Canon 24-105 lens hence my post - Think I might go down to Xume route, I already have them for my kit lens (63mm thread) and they work well and are super convenient but no longer use that lens as the canon is just so superior and faster (constant f2.8 with the Metabones Speedbooster)

Downside is can only order direct and with UK taxes and charges it makes them a little pricey!

Pete

[Robert Benda]

I'd much rather have the ND filter than the lens hood.

I'm perfectly fine pushing my shutter speed up if I have to, but prefer not to.

For most situations (a wedding ceremony by the lake, for instance), I'll go ahead and shoot f/16 (or f/22) rather than roll my shutter up super-high. During key moments like the vows, we're tight on each the bride and groom, anyway, making bokeh not very important. Mostly I want their faces exposed properly and for the lake/sky behind them not to be so over exposed that it might as well be a white wall.

[Les Wilson]

Originally Posted by Peter Rush

Actually Les it's the Sony NEX EA50 ...

Ahhh yes. I thought we were talking 5D. Yes the EA50, FS100, VGxxx each with the same achilles heal. I was going to go the XUME route myself and then stopped using DSLRs instead.