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You might want to open the aperture wide to blur the background or use a slower shutter speed to capture motion blur. The best ND filter allows you to limit the light reaching the sensor, giving you better control over the depth of field without worries of overexposure.
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The best ND filter should fit securely on the camera lens and allow you to take photos even with wide-angle lenses without vignetting. The following neutral density filters come with coatings that help to prevent glare and surface reflections.
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Best Overall
Brand:
PolarPro 82 mm
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Best Versatile
Brand:
Hoya 82mm Pro
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Best Filter With Anti-reflective Coatings
Brand:
B+W 77mm XS-Pro
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Material:
Aluminum
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Material:
Optical Glass, Aluminum
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Material:
Plastic
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Coating Description:
No Coating
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Coating Description:
Multi Coating
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Coating Description:
Multi Coating
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4.6
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4.5
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4.4
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The PolarPro 82 mm is a high-quality filter that comes with a preset stop range feature that significantly helps eliminate vignetting and cross-polarization up to wide-angle lenses of 16mm, ensuring the production of clear and sharp images.
Typically, capturing the blue skies when capturing exterior images in ambient lighting may result in overexposure, especially when using slower shutter speeds and wide apertures.
Fortunately, this filter provides you with six to nine stops of light reduction, allowing you to adjust the light blocking to capture sharp and detailed images depending on how bright the sun is.
Unlike the Hoya 82mm Pro, this filter features a haptic feedback mechanism, allowing you to feel every stop adjustment without necessarily taking your eye off the focus position.
Like the K&F Concept 77mm, the adjustment ring has knurled edges, making it easy to grip the filter. However, the filter lacks coating, increasing the chances of capturing photos with reduced contrast.
The Hoya 82mm Pro is a versatile ND filter that features an ACCU-ND coating which helps maintain color balance even when shooting in a scene with light imbalances.
Like the K&F Concept 77mm, the filter features a low-profile aluminum ring that helps prevent vignetting at the edges of your images when using wide-angle lenses.
This filter helps minimize the light reaching your camera sensor by up to 6 stops, allowing you to use bright apertures and slower shutter speeds when capturing movement in exterior
Unlike the Cokin Expert ND, this filter uses optical glass and aluminum in its construction, ensuring consistent light distribution throughout your pictures.
The two materials also allow easy cleaning and maintenance, ensuring your filter remains in good condition that can't cause spots on the resulting photos. However, the coat of this filter is not scratch resistant, making it susceptible to damage when cleaning it.
If you want a filter that offers protection and anti-reflective features, you can't go wrong with the B+W 77mm XS-Pro.
Unlike the Cokin Expert ND, this filter has a multi-resistant coating that helps reduce surface reflections and ghosting for enhanced color balance. The coating also protects the filter against dust, ensuring it remains clean even when shooting in dusty conditions.
On top of the multi-resistant coating, this filter features a nano-coating that gives it a hydrophobic nature like that of K&F Concept 77mm, relieving you from the worries of damaging the filter after cleaning it with water.
The filter provides you with an exposure reduction of up to 5 stops, allowing you to capture motion blur, such as the blur of water in a swimming pool in the property's backyard.
The front ring of this filter is marked with dots representing varying density values, allowing you to control your density settings easily. However, unlike the Hoya 82mm Pro, this filter is constructed of plastic, which makes it less durable.
The Cokin Expert ND comes with a graduated ND4 hard (2 f-stops) and a graduated ND8 hard (3 f-stops) filter. When capturing real estate exterior photos on a sunny day, there is a probability that you will experience a brightness difference between the open backyard and the shadows created by the building.
These graduated filters help regulate the exposure difference between the shadows and highlights for a more balanced exposure. The kit also includes a full ND4 filter with a light reduction of up to 2 f-stops, allowing you to use slower shutter speeds to create a motion blur effect.
Unlike the Tiffen 77VND 77mm, the lens comes equipped with 52mm, 55mm, 58, and 62mm filter holders, giving you more flexibility if you have a wide range of lenses with varying thread size diameters.
Unlike the Hoya 82mm Pro, this filter also comes equipped with a microfiber cleaning cloth, relieving you of cleaning hassles in case of dust. However, its plastic construction might result in lower image quality compared to the glass construction of the K&F Concept 77mm.
The Tiffen 77VND 77mm is a flexible filter that provides you with around two to eight stops of light reduction, making it ideal for long-exposure
One of the challenging things when using ND filters is the vignetting that occurs when using wide-angle lenses. Fortunately, this filter features a wider outer optic, minimizing the chances of vignetting when using wide-angle optics.
Unlike the other filters in my list, this filter is manufactured using the ColorCore technology that permanently laminates the filter material in between two pieces of optical glass that are ground flat to tolerances of a ten-thousandth of an inch and then attached in precision metal rings.
This allows you to produce high-contrast images with much greater color precision. However, like the PolarPro 82mm filter, this filter lacks a coating, resulting in distractive glare when working in harshly lit conditions.
The K&F Concept 77mm is a premium filter with a wide range of densities from ND4, ND8, ND64 to ND1000, enhancing versatility when shooting in different lighting conditions.
Every ND filter frame is crafted using aviation-grade aluminum with a scale and knurled edges, enhancing the ease of rotation and gripping. With a 3.3mm super slim ring design, this filter helps prevent image distortions or vignetting, allowing you to take detailed images even when using telephone lenses.
Unlike the Cokin Expert ND, this filter is water and scratch resistant, making it a great option for use with weather-sealed lenses when taking exterior images of a property in dusty or snowy conditions.
With a 28 multi-layer coating, this filter helps combat flare and ghosting, increasing the overall contrast of your images. Unlike the other filters on my list, this filter has four pockets that enhance storage when the filters are not in use.
However, tightening the filter tends to cause the screw threads to contract, making it challenging to remove it from the lens.
Different neutral density filters come with varying densities and coatings, which affects their overall performance and usability. The features below can help you choose a filter that fits your lens diameter and meets your light-blocking requirements.
The following table provides you with a quick breakdown of the most crucial things to check out when choosing an ND filter.
| Filter | Water Resistant? | Density (Stops) | Material |
| Hoya 82mm Pro | No | 6 | Optical glass, Aluminum |
| PolarPro 82 mm | No | 6-9 | Aluminum |
| B+W 77mm XS-Pro | Yes | 5 | Plastic |
| Cokin Expert ND | No | 2-3 | Plastic |
| Tiffen 77VND 77mm | No | 2-8 | Optical glass, Aluminum |
| K&F Concept 77mm | Yes | 2-10 | Optical glass, Aluminum |
Keeping in mind that an ND filter minimizes the light that enters the camera lens without altering the image's color, density refers to the amount of light that is blocked or absorbed by the filter.
The density of an ND filter is measured in stops, with each stop representing a reduction in the amount of light by a factor of two. ND filters are available in various densities, from ND2 or 1 stop to ND1000 or 10 stops.
A higher density filter such as the PolarPro 82mm can block the light by up to 9 stops, allowing longer exposures and giving you more control over the depth of field and motion blur in an image as you can open the aperture wide to blur the background without overexposing the image.
When you are taking exterior photos, there might be unwanted light reflecting off reflective surfaces such as glass windows. Usually, this causes bright, distracting spots or streaks in the image or reduces the overall contrast of the photo, making it washed out.
ND filter manufacturers solve this issue using filter coatings, which are thin layers of materials applied on the surface of the filter material. These coatings come in varying types, such as multi-coating and nano-coating. Multi-coating aims at improving the filter's light transmission, reducing glare, and eliminating reflections.
On the other hand, nano-coating is mostly hydrophobic and helps repel water and liquids, making the filter easier to clean and reducing the risk of water spots. For the best results, get a filter with both multi-coating and nano-coating, such as the B +W 77mm XS-Pro.
Just like how lenses come in different sizes depending on the camera sensor size, ND filters are available in different sizes to fit lenses with different filter thread diameters. The filter thread size on a lens is usually indicated by the symbol ø followed by a number.
If you can't find the size label on the lens, you can check the lens manual or the manufacturer's website. Since the ND filter is designed to fit onto the front of a camera lens, it is important to select the correct size ND filter to ensure it fits securely onto the lens and does not cause any vignetting or image distortions.
For instance, if the filter size is indicated as ø82, then consider getting an 82mm ND filter such as the Hoya 82mm Pro. Be keen not to confuse the filter size with the focal length, which is usually indicated in mm on the lens barrel, on the lens mount, or on a label attached to the lens.
A filter is generally attached to the front of a lens by screwing it onto the filter thread on the lens. The filter thread is a metal ring on the front of the lens that is specifically designed to accept screw-on filters such as the Tiffen 77VND 77mm.
Thread pitch in ND filters refers to the distance between the threads. It indicates the number of threads per inch or millimeter on the filter. The thread pitch determines how easily the filter can be screwed on and off a lens.
It is important to match the thread pitch of the filter with the lens to ensure a secure and stable fit. If the thread pitch of the filter is not compatible with the lens, it can result in cross-threading or damage to the filter or lens.
ND filters are made from various materials, such as glass, polymer, and resin. Generally, filters made of glass, such as the Tiffen 77VND 77mm, are considered to be high-quality because they are scratch-resistant, have high optical clarity, and offer excellent color fidelity. Glass is also easier to clean and maintain than other materials.
Resin is more lightweight compared to glass. However, it is less durable than glass and is more prone to scratches and damage. Polymer filters can be considered to be the middle ground, as they are more durable and scratch-resistant and can provide better optical clarity and color accuracy than resin filters.
Most ND filters also come with a metal ring that is screwed onto the lens to attach the filter. The metal ring can be made of different metal alloys, such as brass or aluminum. In most cases, this ring is coated with a layer of black paint to prevent reflections and enhance contrast.
A color cast is a shift in hue or tint that occurs when using a filter. Although neutral density filters are designed to reduce light, they can also cause an unwanted tint to appear in the image, commonly appearing as a blue or yellow color cast.
For example, a poorly designed neutral density filter may introduce a blue color cast, which can make the image appear cooler than it actually is, or a yellow or warm color cast, which can make the image appear warmer than it actually is.
This results from the filter's inability to absorb different wavelengths of light evenly. Since this is more about the build quality of the filter, you can avoid it by getting a high-quality filter such as the K&F Concept 77mm.
Filters come with varying methods of attaching them onto the lens, such as screw-on, filter holder systems, and magnetic and drop-in methods. Screw-on versions are designed to screw directly onto the front of a camera lens using threads on their outer rim that match the thread size of the lens.
Magnetic filters attach to the lens using small magnets. You can attach a mounting ring to the lens and then attach the filter to the ring with magnets. Drop-in filters generally work with lenses that have a slot at the back where a filter can be dropped in.
Lastly, the filter holder system, like that of the Cokin Expert ND Creative Kit, allows you to insert the filter into a holder attached to the lens. This system gives you more flexibility if you need to use multiple filters at once or if you have lenses with different thread sizes.
A graduated ND filter is a neutral density filter that is darker at the top and gradually becomes lighter towards the bottom. This allows you to balance the exposure of a scene.
For instance, if you are taking exterior real estate photos in broad daylight with a significant difference in brightness between the sky and the shadows created by the walls, the filter darkens the bright area of the sky while keeping the exposure of the shadowed areas unchanged.
This results in a more balanced exposure and better detail in the highlights and shadows. For added versatility, get a filter kit that includes graduated ND filters, such as the Cokin Expert ND Creative Kit.
You can clean an ND filter using a lens cleaning solution or alcohol-based cleaning solution. Simply apply it to a microfiber cloth and gently wipe the cloth on the filter in a circular motion, starting from the center and working outwards. You can then use a dry microfiber cloth to remove any remaining cleaning solution from the filter.
The best ND filter density to use depends on the lighting conditions and the camera settings, such as the aperture. Generally, you can start with a 4-stop filter and then adjust the density up or down depending on the specific conditions.
The shape of the filter to use depends on your lens and camera setup. Generally, circular filters are easier to use as they screw onto the front of your lens. Square filters, on the other hand, require a filter holder and adapter ring. However, they offer more flexibility and are better suited for wide-angle lenses.
The best ND filter allows you to control the exposure of the photos without affecting color accuracy. Ensure you get the right filter size that will hold securely on your lens. If you are using lenses of varying diameters, consider getting a filter using a filter holder system.
