VariND
- October 2nd, 2012
- Posted in color . industry . long exposure . nature . object . photography . Photoshop
- By arno
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Last year I bought from B&H Photo Video a Singh-Ray VariND filter.
I’m the kind of guy that wants to have all the good stuff, but I don’t want to have to haul around so much stuff. And since one ND filter rarely does the job, I wanted something that WOULD do the job, but would also give me the flexibility to “change” the filter if necessary.
I had my eye on a VariND filter for awhile already, but I couldn’t really justify the costs (they come in at $340, which is quite a steep price I think). But I was extremely happy when I got it, and I’ve been using it a lot. It’s absolutely worth the investment, especially considering the fact you get ND1-ND8 in one filter and if you’d have to purchase these filters individually you’d be out of a lot more cash.
But… Recently I started experiencing some weird stuff going on. I noticed it for the first time a couple of months ago when I was shooting some images for my “Commuting” series. A weird red “blob” appeared right through the center of the image. At first I thought it might be some funky polarizing going on, but that’s not it. It now appears -only at the darkest setting- indoors, outdoors, in natural light, in bright sunlight, in tungsten light… Everywhere.
It didn’t used to be there. The images I shot and posted in this post were shot also with the VariND and at the darkest setting. They don’t have it.
This is how it looks:
D800, ISO100, 30 sec @ f/16, Nikkor 50mm, VariND filter at its darkest setting
I have no idea what could be the cause of this. I cleaned the filter several times, there’s no other filters on top of the VariND that could cause this. I didn’t drop it… I’m in the dark…
I sent Singh-Ray a mail about it yesterday, let’s see what they come up with (if they reply).
Of course I can fix it, that’s not the problem (there are few things that I can’t fix in Photoshop), but it’s a pain in the ass, because it’s local and not global, so you really have to be precise with the masks and everything. I wouldn’t want to do this to a series of 100 pictures…
D800, ISO100, 30 sec @ f/16, Nikkor 50mm, VariND filter at its darkest setting and some Photoshopping à la Arno
@ttv
This was the second shot with the camera, so it wasn\’t overheated. It had been in a cool car for about 1,5 hours prior and outside temperature was also around 10-12 degrees Celcius.
The shots I mention in the post (the traffic shots) were taken with the camera used a lot more, so a lot hotter sensor. And they don\’t have it.
And I can reproduce the problem, at any given moment, both on my D800 body and D700 body.
It’s probably the sensor heating, it’s not the filter. Try a shot with a cool camera body, so that it’s been outside like 30min off, without shooting, and then directly shoot the 30sek exposure. I’ve experienced the same kind of blob when exposing for several minutes, specially in the end of the shoot, as the body’s overall temperature rises from the usage.