Just realized stacking ND filters beats buying a variable one

I read a post from a guy who shoots Milky Way photos near Flagstaff. He said he tried three different variable ND filters and all of them gave him weird X cross patterns in his images. He switched to stacking a 6-stop and a 10-stop screw-on filter and said the color shift was way less noticeable. I tried it last weekend on a lake shot near my town and he was right. The stacked combo cost me about 45 bucks total. Anyone else ditch the variable ND filters for stacked ones?

3 comments

3 Comments

stella_scott9615d ago

Man I had the same exact issue with a variable ND I bought off Amazon last summer. That X cross pattern showed up on every single long exposure I tried near the river by my house. Switched to stacking a 6-stop and a 10-stop like you said and it's night and day difference. The color cast is almost nonexistent compared to that variable one which gave everything a weird warm tint. Plus I love that I can just unscrew one filter if I need to adjust on the fly instead of rotating a whole ring and hoping for the best. Glad I'm not the only one who made the switch.

green.iris15d ago

My buddy tried the same variable ND trick last summer on a camping trip and it totally ruined his sunset shots of the lake. He was so mad he almost threw the thing into the water but I talked him out of it lol. Now he stacks a 4-stop and a 6-stop together for most of his river stuff and swears he'll never go back to the variable ones either. The color cast difference is legit night and day, his photos came out looking way more natural after he swapped.

wells.christopher14d ago

What kind of variable ND did you have?