Been at a candy store...

[jedirunner]

So, I went in to the local PictureLine store (a local camera store), and was browsing around and talking with the sales dude there to get some information on various things.

I'd like to look at what filters I need for various types of photos. As I was looking at them, I was a bit confused with the ND filters. For example, a Tiffen ND .6 filter ... how many stops is that? Is it 2/3 of a stop? or is the .6 meaning something else, which then calculates to a stop?

Thanks for any clarifications you guys/gals can give!

Kevin

PS - Finished reading through (and trying several exercises from) Peterson's Understanding Exposure. It's an amazingly-written simple book for understanding stuff, and I'll probably read it through one more time in a couple months as I keep playing around. Can't recommend that book highly enough.

 

[jowensphoto]

Let me google that for you

google is your friend

 

[jedirunner]

Let me google that for you

google is your friend

So, based on information from wikipedia, it would appear that the 0.6 marking I saw is for "optical density", which is yet another thing I need to read up on. But that being said, each 0.3 corresponds to 1 f-stop. Therefore, the 0.6 is a 2-stop ND filter.

That sound right to everyone? Or is the conversion more complex than simply divide by .3 to get the f-stop level of the filter?

Thanks,

Kevin

 

[snowbear]

So, based on information from wikipedia, it would appear that the 0.6 marking I saw is for "optical density", which is yet another thing I need to read up on. But that being said, each 0.3 corresponds to 1 f-stop.

Correct. And they are additive (a .3 and a .6 are the same as .9)