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Neewer ND filter set. Any good?

Those were the first filters I tried with the Chroma and the H. Immediately afterwards I bought Polar Pros.

They do not cause gimbal issues though.
 
Thanks for your reply. If you don't mind me asking, what was the issue with them that led you to upgrade?
 
I purchased filters, hated them. I decided it was best to do manual adjustments I get better quality.
 
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I've just tried the Neewer ND4 for this video, which came out OK. I don't hate it so far, and didn't notice any image distortion or colour change. Concur works fine with gimbal. I have done a few fast travelling pans in this so we can observe smoothness to the most obvious degree. Forgive the repeated shots - was just testing that smoothness...


What you don't get is what each filter is written on it, incredibly. They are VERY cheap, but too much so to be able to write that on the rims :) It is actually quite hard to tell which is the ND8 and which is the ND16 - don't know what that says about their accuracy (probably nothing), but I did some consistent shot tests with all 3, and they are darkening in the expected amounts.
Will do a video in today's bright sun using the ND8 and will see how I get on...

I should also mention that the neewer filters come with a note from their CEO asking you to contact him directly if you are in any way not happy ! I did contact him, and did get a response within 1 day...to offer that on a product that costs less than 10 pounds I was quite impressed !
 
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OK, I know this thread is a year old, but it's the most recent one on the subject I can find, so might as well post my continued findings here...
In this video I am testing the Neewer ND8, purchased in Aug 2018, which did exactly what it was supposed to and got my shutter speed down to 1/125, ISO100, shooting at 59.94 FPS on a bright sunny day.


Most of that is as smooth as I was hoping for, but in places where it's not (some of the particularly 'dense' pans) I suspect that is my fault because I went for a half-rate project FPS knowing I would be slowing some of it down, and not wanting to lose frame-rate resolution. When I do this by 50% frame rates match and I can leave interpolation set to the cheap and fast-to-render 'nearest frame' method, and it's perfect. But if I slow footage down by not exactly 50% then I need to remember to change that interpolation to Optical Flow, or something a bit more powerful and processor-intensive than 'nearest frame', and this I forgot to do here :)

But please, if anyone can see problems in this footage you think are caused by the filter, please do let me know ! Because everyone is saying they are awful, and I'm just not seeing the evidence so far...
 
I didn’t see any of the telltale signs of blue in the shadows. What we have seen on other videos with Neewer ND filters is some nasty artifacts when shooting into the sun when it’s close to the horizon. I think you shot with the sun in a higher position.

Lens flare on the CGO3+ is going to happen. It doesn’t have a lens with multiple elements each with coatings to handle UV, chromatic aberration,flare, etc. To get that you’ll have to spend a lot for a much better lens/camera.

FWIW I use Polar Pro ND filters on my CGO3+.

All in all it looked good to me.
 
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What we have seen on other videos with Neewer ND filters is some nasty artifacts when shooting into the sun when it’s close to the horizon. I think you shot with the sun in a higher position.

Lens flare on the CGO3+ is going to happen. It doesn’t have a lens with multiple elements each with coatings to handle UV, chromatic aberration,flare, etc. To get that you’ll have to spend a lot for a much better lens/camera.

FWIW I use Polar Pro ND filters on my CGO3+.

All in all it looked good to me.

OK, thanks Ron. I'll do a vid with the sun right on the horizon, and see what I get :)
 
Since my last remark about filters, I now use them. When I first purchased them I didn't know how to manually adjust the camera correctly.
Trial and error, I now use the filter with all my shots and video.
By the way, I just purchased Adobe Lightroom, AWESOME!
 
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The only thing I would do is, rather than 1/125 go to next highest shutter speed. For me it was a bit dark. JMO.
With the bright sun here in Florida I'm at 1/250 - ISO100
 
Bear in mind Neewer is a company that has been built on selling ultra cheap copies of products developed and marketed by others. They would fall into the class of "lowest possible bidder," and never as a quality brand. They are not noted for either high quality or durability. Those buying from Neewer do so because they are about as cheap as can be possibly found, not because they make good products.
 
Bear in mind Neewer is a company that has been built on selling ultra cheap copies of products developed and marketed by others. They would fall into the class of "lowest possible bidder," and never as a quality brand. They are not noted for either high quality or durability. Those buying from Neewer do so because they are about as cheap as can be possibly found, not because they make good products.

I suspect it's hard to generalise why people try them. Most people who can afford UAVs can also afford high quality filters I would have thought... For example I was literally about to click yes on the Polar Pros when I saw the neewer ones and thought they looked smaller and more compact, and was curious what the results would be spending £8 instead of £70. To my surprise, the results remain quite good so far, unless you can see problems in my footage that I have missed... here's another one with the ND4 - anything wrong with that to your eyes ? :)

 
Hopefully you don't take personal offense as none is meant.

As I watched it on YouTube in 1080p it's kind of hard to pinpoint where issues originate but image sharpness could be a lot better and general color is way off from what it probably was in reality. That could be a white balance correction issue or lens induced color shift. As I live in an area that possesses similar terrain, foliage, and crop stubble I know the colors are not right. The edges of the image appear warped but without knowing the actual terrain, or the camera and lens used to shoot the scenes, it's hard to state there is a difinitive issue there.
 
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No offence taken - just genuinely interested to hear what you thought :) Thanks for giving it a look.

I totally agree about image sharpness in the youtube version. It's not quite as sharp as I would like native from the camera either, presumably due to bitrate, or the glassware in the camera itself, but youtube takes it down from 40MB/sec to 12, which I do find loses me a fair bit of detail.

I see what you mean about colour too - although that is closer what it looked like than you are imagining, but I'll happily admit to punching up the greens and yellows in gain and gamma, so maybe it is my grading choices you are not so keen on... I do appreciate of course that until I do 2 concurrent flights with and without filters and run them next to each other it is very hard to tell what aspect of this are caused by the filter and which are just grading or camera issues. OK, I'll do that next then :)
 
That reduction in bit rate has to leave a lot on the table. Keep giving it a go to see what you get. You'll eventually settle on things that will work consistently the best for what you do. My assessment of Neewer stuff is derived from about 5 years of history with their stuff. They will generally get by but rarely do as well as you know could be done. If I need something in a hurry and don't need the best I know I can often find something that will serve the purpose at Neewer at a low price. When the game needs to be stepped up I look elsewhere.

Sorry about your Polar Pro pricing over there. Over here Best Buy frequently has them on sale for <$30.00 but UK pricing structures and VAT ups the ante a bit.
 
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I've also been using the Neweer filters for my H. I have had surprisingly good shots come from them, without the above mentioned problems. But I too, find the lack of labeling to be a irk.
 

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