My Christmas present - a variable neutral density filter

[Blue_In_AK]

My dear husband gave me this http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/905893-REG/b_w_661072522_77mm_xs_pro_nano_mc_nd_vario.html for Christmas. I have a general idea of how these work, but any tips from the experts would be most welcome. I suspect a lot of trial and error, right? This is 1-5 stops. Are there situations in which one would need (or want) more?

[ManiacJoe]

1. When you want more stops,

it is normally because you want to use really wide apertures in really bright light,
or you want really long exposures to blur the clouds and/or water and/or people.

The catch with going for more stops is that the quality of the filter quickly becomes noticeable. Often the cheaper filters will give an uneven or blotchy exposure across the frame.

How to use:

Most likely you are going to want a tripod.

Usually the biggest problem the ND filter introduces is removing too much light for a correct auto-focus. You may need to focus the lens at the 1-stop level, change to manual focus to prevent further auto-focus attempts, then rotate the filter to get the darkness level you really want.

[Blue_In_AK]

2. Thanks.

That's just the kind of tip I was hoping for. It's been so gray and dark here the past few days, I'm going to have to wait for some sunny weather, I think, to try this out. I assume it would be good for shooting snowy scenes in bright weather?

[ManiacJoe]

3. They are good for longer shutter speeds to make more motion blur

or good for wider apertures for a shallower depth of field.

For some artistic purposes there really is such a thing as too much light.

[Blue_In_AK]

4. I think it will be fun to play with

and hopefully cut down some on post -processing, once I know what I'm doing.