In photography and optics, a neutral density filter or ND filter can be a colorless (clear) or grey filter. An ideal neutral density filter reduces and/or modifies intensity of all wavelengths or colors of light equally, giving no changes in hue of color rendition.
The purpose of standard photographic neutral density filters is to allow the photographer greater flexibility to change the aperture, exposure time and/or blur of subject in different situations and atmospheric conditions.
For a ND filter with optical density d the amount of optical power transmitted through the filter, which can be calculated from the logarithm of the ratio of the measurable intensity (I) after the filter to the incident intensity (I0), shown as the following:
- Fractional Transmittance (I⁄I0) = 10-d, or
For example, on a very bright day, one might wish to photograph a waterfall at a slow shutter speed to create a deliberate motion blur effect. In order to do this, one would need a shutter speed on the order of tenths of a second. There might be so much light that even at minimum film speed and a minimum aperture such as f/32, the corresponding shutter speed would still be too fast. In this situation, by applying an appropriate neutral density filter one or more stops can be taken out of the exposure, allowing a slow shutter speed and more pleasing effect.
The use of an ND filter allows the photographer to utilize a larger aperture that is at or below the diffraction limit, which varies depending on the size of the sensory medium (film or digital) and for many cameras, is between f/8 and f/11, with smaller sensory medium sizes needing larger sized apertures, and larger ones able to use smaller apertures.
Instead of reducing the aperture to limit light, the photographer can add a ND filter to limit light, and can then set the shutter speed according to the particular motion desired (blur of water movement, for example) and the aperture set as needed (small aperture for maximum sharpness or large aperture for narrow depth of field (subject in focus and background out of focus). Using a digital camera, the photographer can see the image right away, and can choose the best ND filter to use for the scene being captured by first knowing the best aperture to use for maximum sharpness desired. The shutter speed would be selected by finding the desired blur from subject movement. The camera would be set up for these in manual mode, and then the overall exposure then adjusted darker by adjusting either aperture or shutter speed, noting the number of stops needed to bring the exposure to that which is desired. That offset would then be the amount of stop needed in the ND filter to use for that scene.
Examples of this use include:
- Blurring water motion (e.g. waterfalls, rivers, oceans).
- Reducing depth of field in very bright light (e.g. daylight).
- When using a flash on a camera with a focal-plane shutter, exposure time is limited to the maximum speed -often 1/250th of a second, at best- at which the entire film or sensor is exposed to light at one instant. Without an ND filter this can result in the need to use f8 or higher.
- Using a wider aperture to stay below the diffraction limit.
- Reduce the visibility of moving objects
- Add motion blur to subjects
Neutral density filters are used to control exposure with photographic catadioptric lenses, since the use of a traditional iris diaphragmincreases the ratio of the central obstruction found in those systems leading to poor performance.
ND filters find applications in several high-precision laser experiments because the power of a laser cannot be adjusted without changing other properties of the laser light (e.g. collimation of the beam). Moreover, most lasers have a minimum power setting at which they can be operated. To achieve the desired light attenuation, one or more neutral density filters can be placed in the path of the beam.
A graduated ND filter is similar except the intensity varies across the surface of the filter. This is useful when one region of the image is bright and the rest is not, as in a picture of a sunset.
The transition area, or edge, is available in different variations (soft, hard, attenuator). The most common is a soft edge and provides a smooth transition from the ND side and the clear side. Hard edge grads have a sharp transition from ND to clear and the attenuator edge changes gradually over most of the filter so the transition is less noticeable.
Another type of ND filter configuration is the ND Filter-wheel. It consists of two perforated glass disks which have progressively denser coating applied around the perforation on the face of each disk. When the two disks are counter-rotated in front of each other they gradually and evenly go from 100% transmission to 0% transmission. These are used on catadioptric telescopes mentioned above and in any system that is required to work at 100% of its aperture (usually because the system is required to work at its maximum angular resolution).
Practical ND filters are not perfect, as they do not reduce the intensity of all wavelengths equally. This can sometimes create color casts in recorded images, particularly with inexpensive filters. More significantly, most ND filters are only specified over the visible region of the spectrum, and do not proportionally block all wavelengths of ultraviolet or infrared radiation. This can be dangerous if using ND filters to view sources (such as the sun or white-hot metal or glass) which emit intense non-visible radiation, since the eye may be damaged even though the source does not look bright when viewed through the filter. Special filters must be used if such sources are to be safely viewed.
ND filters are quantified by their optical density or equivalently their
f-Stop reduction as follows:
lens area opening, as fraction of the complete lens Filter Optical Density f-Stop Reduction % transmittance 1 0.0 100% ND2 1/2 0.3 1 50% ND4 1/4 0.6 2 25% ND8 1/8 0.9 3 12.5% ND16 1/16 1.2 4 6.25% ND32 1/32 1.5 5 3.125% ND64 1/64 1.8 6 1.563% ND128 1/128 2.1 7 0.781% ND256 1/256 2.4 8 0.391% ND512 1/512 2.7 9 0.195% ND1024 1/1024 3.0 10 0.098% ND2048 1/2048 3.3 11 0.049% ND4096 1/4096 3.6 12 0.024% ND8192 1/8192 3.9 13 0.012%
Another practical way of determining what type of ND filter to use is by the percent of light that the filter allows to pass (transmittance). This parameter is typically applied to microscopy applications versus photography applications.
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