After getting a couple of ND filters

[480sparky42 42]

Never saw a VND that does 10 stops. Most top out at 8.

 

[agp]

I never heard about the X mark thing. I guess I should have stuck with single ND filters.

 

[Gavjenks]

Never saw a VND that does 10 stops. Most top out at 8.

The cheap ones often directly advertise (and achieve) 10 stops. And a lot of the fancy ones also do go to 10 stops, but they only advertise up to 8, and then have a "maximum" marking on the ring that is not actually at a full 90 degrees of opposition.

Thus, you can simply spin the ring beyond "maximum" and go up to higher stops.

I presume the reason for this is that they don't want to make guarantees of quality above 8 stops, due to things like the "X" pattern that they cannot completely eliminate at high levels of occlusion. If you spin it to 9 stops and take a picture with a pattern on it and complain, then they can just be like "Sorry dude, you used it beyond it's advertised and recommended parameters, not our fault."

 

[480sparky42 42]

I never heard about the X mark thing. I guess I should have stuck with single ND filters.

If you try to dial a VND to it's maximum, you'll end up with a dark X on the image.

But it only shows up as your near crossing the two halves of the filer 90°. Stay below the 'maximum', and you're fine.

 

[Gavjenks]

I never heard about the X mark thing. I guess I should have stuck with single ND filters.

But it only shows up as your near crossing the two halves of the filer 90°. Stay below the 'maximum', and you're fine.

It always happens, but the X just gets fuzzier as you turn it down, to the point of being effectively invisible (still potentially affecting contrast, though).

The degree to which it "fuzzes out of visibility" is similar to if you had a twig in front of your lens, and shot at f/22 versus f/16, f/11, f/8, etc. Gets fuzzier and more invisible with each stop at about the same rate the X in a VND gets fuzzier and more invisible with each lower stop of ND.

 

[agp]

I'll play around with my VND filter once it comes in the mail... If this is really pronounced on a 35mm f1.4 then I'll return it for some single NDs.

 

[Gavjenks]

At 35mm you should be fine except maybe on absolute max occlusion, and even then likely only with cheap $20-30 VNDs. It's usually more an issue at wider angles than that.

(at crop frame, I'm talking about btw. Full frame very slightly more likely to be a problem, since the patterns sometimes get stronger out toward edges of the image circle. Still probably fine.)

 

[agp]

I have the Tiffen VND and Fuji XF 35mm. I hope I won't have to return this. I have returned/exchanged too many things lately.