77mm Fader ND Mark II

While the quality of the glass and coating is great, there are some things that I don't like:1. the moving ring part doesn't have a stop so you can keep going around and around2. the moving part not only rotates but has a little play that makes it feel like it is going to break3. with a wide angle lens I can't use the filter at the highest setting without getting a cross pattern in the image

This is a very well made high quality Fader ND filter. I am glad I made this purchased. I am using this filter for shooting video out door and bright sunny day, where this ND filter is very useful.

Got 22mp Camera? Tried of clear, sharp images that lets you zoom in on eyelashes? Well then the LightCraft ND Mark II fader is for you!Pros: it is well builts, nice glass, oversized for 77m which is nice, great lens cap. Is a great ND fader, I cannot fault it for that it will darken down to nearly black.Cons: There is not a word for this but it destroys a creamy bokah, but tossing in lines or something. Drops the sharpness by HALF! learned this the hard way. Was taking some family portraits (professionally) and want use my nifty new toy that showed up the day before the shoot. Well all of the photos that were taken with this fader had to go thru massive amounts of photoshop before they were useable, not only that it messed up the colors, never did get that quite fixed.Do not buy this for landscape!It should work well for video production, but not as good as a better one. Sorry to by the bearer of bad news. I really wanted this little gem to work.

ND filters reduce the amount of light that gets to your lens. They let you shoot at a slow speed in daylight so you can capture movement of water or people against a fixed background, for example, or at night when you want to capture the movement of lights on cars, etc. You can buy ND filters of various strengths, or buy avariable ND filter that gives you a wide range of adjustmentLight Craft's Fader ND filter is the variable type. This is a lower cost alternative to Singh Ray variable ND filters. I can't make a direct comparison with Singh Ray products, but I did run the Light Craft Fader through some tests on a Canon 5D Mark II with a 24-105mm lens and it's certainly satisfactory - designed well and made well. There was no loss of sharpness, based on comparing images shot with no filter and about a dozen images shot with the Fader filter at various degrees of ND. The filter shifts color slightly in the warm direction. It's not hard to compensate for this on your computer, but it's probably a good idea to take a shot without the filter so you have a baseline for making adjustments. Adjusting is easiest if you shoot in RAW, because you can reduce the color temperature slightly as a first step in processing.The filter consists of two polarizing filers mounted in a ring so that the outer filter can be rotated. That allows you to vary the degree of density from about 2 stops to about 9 stops. The inner ring is the same size as your lens threads. Light Craft puts a slightly larger diameter filter into the outer ring to reduce the risk of vignetting. The 77mm Fader has an 82 mm outer filter and there was no vignetting with my 24 -105 mm lens set at 24 mm. The filter comes in a plastic case and it's supplied with an 82mm lens cap because the maker realizes that the cap from your lens won't fit the larger diameter outer ring. Another nice touch is that the outer ring is threaded in case you want to attach another filter. There's a small leaflet in the case with instructions written in perfect English that explains that the amount of increased density available varies depending on the focal length of your lens. On a very wide angle lens, you can't use the full 9 stop potential. With my lens set at 24 mm and the filter set for maxium density, the vertical edges of the frame are darkened more than the center. You can see the effect in your viewfinder especially if you use Live View, so it's not hard to avoid, and it the limitation vanishes as the focal length increases. I could get about 5 stops of density at 24mm and the full 9-stop effect was available at 50mm without any unevenness across the frame.

The fader is very disappointing and hardly usable. I tried it on a wide angle (10-20mm) and a normal lens (50mm), both on DX and FX camera's, but closing down the view (less light in the lens) I get dark lines and spots and unequal light all the time. I don't use it any more and prefer a normal ND filter.

I had already committed to buying the Lee Filter 4x4 mattbox set up but I thought I'd give this a try with the idea in mind that it would be an interim step where I could learn some stuff. The quick lesson... "there's no free lunch". On the CON-side - I was able to reproduce every artifact that all the forums reported. On the PRO-side, if you are not being paid to produce repeatable results and it's only your own time you're wasting, then by all means this little gadget will fill the bill. BUT.... and that is a BIG but.... if you need repeatable results without the gut-wrenching fear of screwing up, then go for the LEE filter kit with the BIG STOPPER and a couple others inbetween. The big problem that I encountered was that on the extreme end, there is no "fine tuning" and no way to actually repeat the same setting. Yeah, I used tape, I was careful, I took notes.. yadda, yadda, yadda. However, I did learn a lot and when I do purchase the Lee filters I'll be better informed. And, because the Fader doesn't take up much space, it's something that I can pack around in my every-day kit.

No Purple haze that some have spoken of! For allowing video DOF at 2.8 in bright daylight, this filter works beautifully. Get one, you won't regret it. A wise photographer once told me this story. Whats the difference between a photographer with a $5000 camera and one with a $3000 camera? The answer was simple. The one photographer has an extra $2000 in his pocket!