Choosing between a ND filter for a wide or normal lens

[cacahuete]

Basically on a budget, have spend 1500€ up until now buying gear for my camera and I'm confused on what'd be used more with a ND filter (Hoya ND 400x)
Would be used mainly for shooting landscapes, beach etc...

It's the 58(normal lens) or 77 (my wide)


*and basically the more stops the better?

 

[TCampbell]

Buy the ND for the lens with the widest thread size. Buy "step up rings" to adapt that filter to lenses with smaller thread sizes.

You want to make sure the thread-on ring doesn't show up vignetting the corners in your widest lens. Generally this is not a problem for most common wide angles. But there are solutions for very wide lenses. There are also some "slim" mount thread-on filters but be aware that to make them slim they either no threads on the front side (which means you can't stack filters if needed) or they have almost no threads (which means a lens cap that grips the filter threads to stay on the lens will probably keep falling off.)

The common number of stops blocked for ND filters are 1, 2, 3, 6, and 10. A 3 stop ND filter is probably the most common. You can stack them. A 10-stop ND filter is so dark that you wont be able to see through it to focus or frame the shot. You typically have to frame the shot without the filter on the lens... then put the filter on just before shooting.

ND filters are often sold in density values. Each "0.1" density represents 1/3rd of a stop. An "ND 0.3" is a 1 stop filter. "ND 0.6" is 2 stops. etc.

You may also be interested in Graduated ND filters (GND) which are rectangular plates that slide into a filter holder. Half of the filter is clear. The other half is tinted. You can decide how far to slide the filter in to set the point where it cuts the light. The idea is that if the sky is too bright, you can cut the sky which allows you to increase exposure to the foreground, etc.