Neutral Density Filters

Neutral Density Filters can be a big help in lowering exposure requirements to get a good image in bright light.

For instance, if your camera's meter says you need to take a photo at 1/1000 sec at f16 with an ISO 200 setting in order to get a good exposure, what if you don't want so much depth of field from an f16 aperture? Perhaps you prefer to shoot at f2.8 instead. This would mean you are increasing the amount of light getting to your image sensor by 5 EV.

To achieve this goal, you would need to move your shutter speed to 1/32000 second, leave the ISO at ISO 200 and move the aperture to f2.8. That's impossible with the current cameras we have available. The shutter speed is way beyond the camera's ability. Alternatively, you could leave the shutter speed at 1/1000 second and drop the ISO to ISO 6 and move the aperture to f2.8. Again, an impossible task as most DSLR cameras won't go below ISO 100. You need 5 EV (exposure value) to achieve your goal, but you just can't do it with the current cameras.

The alternative is to use perhaps a ND 0.9 filter. An ND 0.9 filter gives you 3 EV less light transmission. With the filter, you can then easily get the extra 2 EV by simply moving the shutter speed to 1/4000 second and the aperture to f2.8 and leave the ISO at 200. This will give you the equivalent of 5 EV less light and work within the camera's capabilities. Your exposure would look exactly the same, but your depth of field (DOF) would dramatically drop yielding a nice shallow DOF.

If you do a lot of photography outside with bright sunlight, consider investing in a good quality Neutral Density Filter. There are many different ND filters available depending on how much light transmission you want to cut. But the most versatile one is probably the ND 0.9 version in my opinion. Its 3 EV ability works well in many situations.

(The image above was borrowed from the internet.)