Skip to main content

Haida NanoPro MC ND 3.0 10 stop filter review

Neutral density filters or ND filters can be used to produce stunning landscape and portrait photos. The two common DSLR photography usage of ND filters include longer shutter time or a wider aperture. A 10 stop ND filter looks very similar to a black piece of glass, which is why it is also known as a black filter. Due to the extreme darkness, it becomes nonrealistic to use 10 stop filter for outdoor portraits. If you are wondering the meaning of 10 stop or how ND filters are named, check out my old post about the nomenclature of ND Filters.  For daylight landscapes, you need 6-10 stops to create those stunning long exposure shots. In fact, a few things you will easily find in a landscape photographer's arsenal includes: 
Sturdy tripod
Polarizing filter
Neutral density filter

Beach waterfall using Haida NanoPro ND3.0 filter

Hoya, Singh-Ray, B+W, Lee, Haida, Cokin, etc are few known brands in the neutral density filter market. The cost of a given neutral density filter is determined by the coating and optical quality of glass used. This post will focus on the Haida NanoPro MC ND3.0 (ND1000) 10 stop filter review. The package comes in a silver box with a foam gasket and the filter.  I have been using this filter for all of my daytime long exposure photography needs. It is a square-shaped constant density ND filter which means darkness is the same throughout the filter. It connects with Tokina 11-16 mm F2.8 mm lens through a cheap filter system I bought from eBay. Adding another piece of glass between the lens and subject often can produce weird colour casts or it can also change the white balance of the image. Luckily, my experience with the Haida Nano Pro ND1000 filter has been successful so far. 

Good: 
No weird colour cast. 
No white balance issue. I mostly shoot raw, but have never been forced to correct white balance tint or temperature when using this filter. 

Bad: 
If you are a pixel peeper, it slightly decreases image sharpness. But my personal experience says this is a common issue with most of the neutral density filters. 
Vignetting. Yes, there is a marginal amount of vignetting on the left bottom and right bottom in some of the images. It happens to 1 in every 15-20 images so not really a huge deal breaker. 

Example shots: 
All the images used in this post were taken by using a Canon T5i with Haida 10 stop Nano Pro ND filter connected to a Tokina 11-16 F2.8 lens. 

Daytime beach photograph using Haida Nanopro Nd 3.0

Rocky shore daytime using Haida NanoPro MC ND 3.0

Waterfall shot using Haida ND filter

Tip:
While using a 10 stop ND filter during daylight, never forget to cover the viewfinder. If the viewfinder is facing a direct source of light and left uncovered, there is a high chance to see a lot of strange artifacts and flares in the captured image. During the daytime, there is tons of natural light hitting the lens and camera from all sides. If you notice a light leak flare, try adjusting the foam gasket in addition to covering the viewfinder. 
Hope you found this post helpful for your long exposure photography needs. Share the photography love by sharing this post. :) 
Reactions:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Canon CR3 raw format guide

A raw image file is like a digital negative without any lossy compression and minimal processing applied to it. A digital camera shooting images in raw format provides output in the best possible quality, which means files are larger in size and take more space. The benefits offered by shooting raw format overpowers the slight storage hassle though. Few of the well known raw formats include CR2, NEF, RW2, RAF, PEF, ARW, etc.  In this post, we will talk about the new compressed raw format introduced by Canon starting with its mirrorless series of cameras.


History of Canon raw formats
Back in the early 2000s, Canon cameras produced raw photos in CRW format. Example of cameras shooting in CRW include Canon D60, Canon D30, Canon 10D, and Canon EOS 300D. Most of the cameras released after the year 2004 shoot raw photos in CR2 format. Examples of CR2 format Canon cameras include 350D, 6D, 7D, 5D, 5D Mark II and many more.
In 2018, Canon introduced its new mirrorless camera known as the EOS …
9 comments
Read more

Relation between ISO, shutter speed, aperture and light in photography

Photography is a word having Greek roots, which basically means "drawing with light". When I started doing digital photography a few years ago, this did not make sense to me at all. How can you make a picture just using light? Only light matters? My pictures were either black or completely washed out all the time, but I didn't feel like giving up. It took me a fair amount of time to understand controls such as shutter speed, aperture and ISO which was the outcome of non-stop reading and a lot of mistakes. Coming back to the concept of light, it started to make sense after attending a film photography workshop. The dark room with very dim or near to zero red lights was a whole new point of interest. My partner and I made a pinhole camera out of a pumpkin. 
The workshop made me understand how important light is when taking pictures, and the rules apply to both film and digital photography. Basically, the value of shutter speed and aperture directly affect the amount of li…
4 comments
Read more

F2.8 vs F3.5 vs F4 lens aperture comparison with examples

I started the exciting journey of digital photography with 18-55 mm kit lens as my first glass. Being a variable aperture lens, it has a minimum aperture of F3.5 at 18 mm. The lens saw its fair share of adventures and ultimately was replaced with a fixed aperture lens.   Value of aperture is a part of the exposure triangle, which means it affects the amount of light hitting DSLR camera sensor. In addition to light, it also affects the amount of area in focus which is often referred to as Depth of Field. An image taken at F8 will have almost everything in focus when compared to an image taken at F2.8. Before someone jumps on me with their DOF vocabulary, this post is not about depth of field (DOF) in detail discussion. It is a simple comparison post for beginners to understand how lens aperture impacts background blur and low light performance. 
DSLR used: Canon 6D Lens used: Tamron 24-70 mm F2.8 DI VC USD
Bokeh (background blur) comparison:

Comparison animation in the above photo show…
Post a Comment
Read more