Pixiq

Here's a title that should draw attention. How does a filter Fader ND make pictures cleaner? Well, allowing the photographer to have fewer concerns about having to clean filter surfaces. When water is close by, I should add.

The Fader ND filter from LightCraft Workshop that I’ve tested for some time is an interesting filter for people wanting to go really low on exposure and that also need to be able to vary the amount of light entering the lens. With a variation between two stops (ND4) to about nine stops (ND500), the filter opens new areas of exploration for photographers that want to do long exposures or want to simply control their aperture and depth of field at times of day when you’re not able to do so.

One could argue that it’s cheaper to buy a set of ND filters with the conventional grades of 0,3, 0.6, and 0.9 (1, 2 and 3 stops) and stack them together on a filter holder when there’s need for so much loss of light, but one would still be short of the range of this filter, so the Fader ND wins in this area. And in some others as you’ll discover if you keep reading.

The Fader ND is made of two opposing polarizers, the front element rotating over the non-rotating section. There’s a scale on the side but I found that it’s easier and less confusing to look through the viewfinder and decide what is right for your needs. When you reach the maximum amount of effect, you get a black cross over the image and… have to back up a bit to get things right. It’s easy and works fine.

When holding the filter you’ll discover that the front element has a wider diameter than the back, to avoid vignetting. So, my 77mm filter has in fact a front diameter of 82mm and LCW supplies a cap to protect it. Nice. The Fader ND is available in 52mm, 58mm, 62mm, 67mm, 72mm, 77mm, 82mm and 86mm diameters, enough to satisfy different users.

When I first looked at the Fader ND I felt it was a nice piece of equipment but not one that would make me drop my set of ND filters to use in landscape photography. I felt comfortable with those. Until recently. For a project I’ve been photographing, something I call Atlantic Realm, a collection of pictures along a stretch of coast in Portugal that is filled with legends that lead our imagination to Atlantis, I’ve been sometimes photographing very close to the sea water, with all the problems you can imagine.

And because I am doing some of my pictures in the middle of the day, in order to get a light very different from those late afternoon seascapes people use to do (me included), I need to find ways to get a long exposure for the water to get the silky look I want for some images. So my filter holder and three ND have been in use a lot of time.

Until recently, I must say. Working with filters close to sea water is prone to… a lot of cleaning. In fact sometimes, depending on wind, how close I was to the water and the size of the waves, I would spend more time cleaning filters than photographing. Now imagine: three filters mean six surfaces to clean, plus the lens front element. And some days I would find that when I finished cleaning one filter the others were already showing marks of sea water.

It was on such a day that I remembered the Fader ND and a bright idea came to my mind: I could use it to get the same effect, sparing me for the need to keep cleaning filters all the time. Now I just have to clean one surface and besides that I also discovered it is faster to get the desired exposure just rotating the Fader ND. So, there you are: my photos are cleaner now, my microfiber cloth is less used and I get more keepers with less hassle all the way.