It is very late where I live, but if you do some search on the helios or heliopan and sighray they are as sharp on long focal lens. But they cost a lot compared to the LCW and more so the DIY. So it is more and issue with the LCW one. I think the best bet would be for us to search for a good combination of linear+circular or two linear polarizer. In fact just need two 82 or 77mm ones and it is very easy to do it because they have threads.

@B3Guy The second link that danyyyel posted is about the original Fader ND. The first one deals with the updated MK II that I own. From the tests it looks like the Fader ND MK II still does not perform well with telephoto lens. I personally rarely use longer focal lengths, so it is not a problem for me. If you need to use longer focal length lenses then this looks to be a no go, but I'll try and run some tests on my own copy of the MK II. Perhaps something has changed in the meantime.

I think this will be a problem with any homemade polarizer solution as well. You need decent polarizers to avoid colour cast and loss of sharpness. Does anyone know if the much more expensive Sigh Rays also suffer from this loss of resolution with longer focal length lenses? For longer focal length lenses the best (cheapest) option is probably to invest in fixed ND filters.

@danyyyel
There is definitely a slight colour cast between having the filter on and not having it on. This can be easily fixed by white balancing with the filter on. The colour cast is constant though (does not change) as the filter is rotated through the different stops; white balance once and you are done.

The original version of the Fader ND from Light Craft Workshop introduced a significant loss in resolution (softness) and a stronger colour cast. The updated version (Fader ND Mark II) solves these issues.

As far as lenses go, I have only tested the Fader ND with my 20mm 1.7 Panasonic and the 50mm Canon FD lenses. There is no resolution loss or (significant) colour cast with either lens. The appearance of the x pattern at higher amounts of attenuations is supposed to become worse for wider angle lenses. I can test again with my 14mm pancake (widest lens I have), but I think this will be OK as well—the Fader is specced for up to 8 stops, but I manage to get over 10 stops with the 20 mm without any problems.

At the telephoto end of things these variable NDs based on polarizers are supposed to perform worse. I have not tested this, but I do have the 45-200mm Panasonic lens. Maybe this weekend I'll see if there is a significant loss of sharpness with longer focal length lenses.

The colours in the video are not accurate. Not because of the Fader ND, but because of the quick colour correcting I did in FCPX. Still haven't mastered the new colour correcting tools. I really wish there were s-curves like those available in decent photo editors.

From the test I see a color cast from the no nd to the fader ND test, like more magenta. In your video also I see the skin tone a bit on the magenta but as you don't have a with and without it is a bit difficult to judge. I have seen some test some time ago where the result were terrible beyond about 50 mm. Did you do a test at these focal length. I have seen many test of the light craft fader that did not test beyond these focal length that praised it without talking about this flaw.

@kshalm
Thank you for review, I was wondering how this Fader ND performs ...

@bubba
I removed separate topic, just because I see 77mm Tiffen filters for less than $50 a piece on ebay.

@shrigg
Got a note from filmtools that my order has been shipped
I ordered the ND filters without IR filtering.

@bubba

I have the Tiffen IRND and posted samples, check my earlier post. 2filter.com stocks these

Here GH2 test with Marumi ND8 filter (daylight shots)

Fader ND filter is good for video. B+W CPL filter for photo as I prefer jacking up shutter speed. I don't stack them up.

@feha, a CPL has a linear polarizer layer (just like a normal linear pola filter). Two linears will gradually darken the image as you rotate one against the other (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarizer for details).

So two CPLs work the same way. But the advantage is that, when they are facing each other, they unpolarize the incoming light _before_ they fade it, and that makes all the difference. But it looks like the commercial ones do not use two circulars.

The faders have two effects - first they act like a normal polarizers (eg. just on the sky & reflections), and then they fade the whole image. Try the LCD test on yours.

EDIT: with your CPLs, if you place them facing each other, so the camera-side of each one is on the outside, then you should be able to rotate them both together without blocking LCD light. Now try rotating just one, it should work like a fader.

.. actually I'm right, two circulars facing each other work like a fader, but do not block out the LCD light (I forgot that RealD 3D glasses use circular polarizers and I have tons of those). They do introduce unpleasant colour shifts from blue to yellow as you rotate them, but that's probably due to the low quality polarizers used in the glasses.

So the commercial faders are probably using one circular at the back (for camera metering compatiblity) and a linear at the front, that's why they act like polarizers on incoming light. Not good.