Hello everybody! It's the last day, last month, last post, last test, last review, last picture...EVER! ...of 2016 :P
As I promised on the ND vs Post Process test, I got my hands on a welding glass, best 2$ ND filter ever :)) and found the time and the clouds to test it out. I don't know how many stops it has but from what I feel is somewhere around 10 stops, could be more, check it out:
Neat huh?
...well you don't know but I do. I'm back, after being rudely interrupted by the lack of ram and browser crash that deleted this article when I was sending my good wishes, well that's not gonna happen now...and it was a good one.. lost forever ...such is life.
As you can see, top to bottom, first no filter, the next ones with the welding glass, from what i suspect is somewhere around a 10 stopper, I could be wrong. From what I can tell the loss of sharpness is not that bad, it's much sharper then the plastic ND filters from the cheapo kit 3 stops, the only big difference is the amount of noise gathered from the long exposure.
The down sides of the welding glass are, the mounting system problems and the problems generated by it. Such as, light leaks on the top, witch can make the front of the lens visible in the back of the glass. You can see that in the 30s exposure. Something easy to fix just by holding the hand over it. Another major thing being the extremely safe and sturdy glass support system ... composed by 2 hair bands :).
There are some other issues with it, if you want to shoot color pics, there is a reason why the pics above are B/W, some of you know why, but for the ones that don't, I can tell you this: you can shoot color, but not all of them you crazy people, just one :D :
Welcome ... to the real world, NEO!
Cool stuff huh?! So yes, you can make color pictures, as long as you want everything green :D. Could be night vision, you don't know. It's a cool effect but I guess it's harder to fix up in comparison to the ND plastic filters witch only have a blueish haze tint to the picture. A less sharper and not so slow picture.
As any big stopper, you have to focus and frame your picture before getting your welding glass in front of the lens, for that you need a tripod..and for the long exposure as well.. just wanted to make sure every body knows. If not, well you can try it with the glass on but it looks like this :) .. and it's a 3 seconds exposure:
..just look at that balanced but complex composition
I don't know what i was saying in the first try at this by this time, it's the first time i screw it up and apparently some of the excitement and originality of the post can be lost when redone.
There is not much more I can say about a piece of glass to be realistic about it. I am pretty happy about it and about the results. It's the darkest and sharpest piece of glass I have found for this amount of money :) if I found a welding glass for 1$ maybe that will top it :)). I'm looking forward for integrating this in my future shoots, maybe in a car scene something with some moving clouds, but that's enough revealing for now.
I am curious about what you other people think about this glass, this test, this review, this blog, this site, this world, this universe ... ok got a little carried away there.
Until next time,
have a happier new year and keep the shooting!
CheeRS!