The pride of Chinese photographer- NiSi V6 filter holder

Aug 21, 2021by YangFanshun

In landscape photography, filters, tripods and cameras together form the three most important parts. Although cameras and post-production techniques have improved considerably, optical filters are still required to solve some light-related problems in landscape photography. The most commonly used filters include Neutral Density Filter (ND), Graduated Neutral Density Filter (GND) and Circular-Polarizing Lens (CPL). For quick and easy access to filters on the camera, we need a stable and durable filter holder. I recommend the NISI V6 100mm Filter Holder as I use it myself, so I'll share my experiences with it.

1.Design

This is a 100mm square holder system, and it is also the most widely used and cost-effective solution we have for full frame micros and DSLRs. The reason to choose a square filter is that a square filter is very flexible in controlling the position of the horizon when you use GND filter, a circle filter doesn't.

2.Material & technology

The Nisi V6 stand is made of high-quality aluminum CNC molded in one piece, with a metallic touch that is both weighty and premium. And all the screws, knobs and metal parts are fitted with great precision. Chinese production has long since ceased to be synonymous with low quality and cheapness, but this is the best filter holder I have ever come across.

3.Introduction

The front mount is octagonal in shape, with a bevelled design that exposes all four corners of the filter, making it easy to remove the filter. And with guide slots for each slot, filter removal and installation is very smooth. There are two knobs on the side of the holder. One knob is pulled outwards to remove the holder. The other knob is a safety lock that locks the mount so that it does not rotate. The main holder of the holder system is 82mm, which is becoming more and more common with professional zoom lenses, so it is only logical that 82mm has become the standard for the holder. The Nisi V6 also comes with adopters for smaller lenses, 77mm, 72mm and so on. If your lens is not 82mm, you can mount the adapter on the lens first and then put the holder on it. I bought the v6 landscape kit, which includes a landscape CPL for enhanced color, and the Nisi V6 holder allows you to use three square filters at the same time, and you can also attach a CPL filter, so you can use a total of four filters.

4.Solving the problem of vignetting

On full frame cameras, the most used lenses for landscapes are basically zoom lenses such as 16-35mm, 24-70mm, 70-200mm, and some wide angle fixed focal length lenses with large apertures. Filter holder is not difficult to design and make for length lenses, but for wide angle lenses they can easily create vignetting, the Nisi V6 holder is a good solution to this problem. A very small cut-out in the outermost slot of the filter holder solves the problem of vignetting on wide angle lenses.

5.Carrying and protection

The Nisi V6 holder has a protective bag made of 600d snow canvas, which is waterproof and snowproof and has good resistance to compression. There's a two-way magic buckle on the back of the bag to attach it to a tripod, hang it from your waist or use it on the strap of a bag. The interior is self-contained, allowing filter holders in the main compartment and adapter rings and CPL filters in the other two smaller compartments. Usually when we finish shooting a scene and have to move on to another scene in a short time, the filter holder will be taken off, but the adapter will not be taken off, otherwise it would be too much trouble to do so. And the lens cap will not be covered. The Nisi V6 has a special lens cap that covers the lens and protects it.

6.Filter recommendations

There are three levels of ND filters that are commonly used: ND1000, ND64 and ND8. I will share the Nisi ND1000 and ND64 that I use. As we can see below, the higher the stop, the stronger the light block and the longer the exposure, giving a different long exposure effect.

The NiSi 100x100mm ND1000 (3.0) Neutral Density filter:

The ten-stop ND1000 (3.0), a ten-stop light reducing lens, is often used when the light is relatively strong to shoot slow shutter, such as a few seconds to a few minutes, to capture moving objects in the picture, such as disappearing the flow of people, blurring the clouds in the sky, a sense of passing, turning water into fog, mirroring, drawing, silk milk-like.

It reduces the amount of light entering the lens by a factor of 1,000, which equates to a picture that will be 1,000 times darker. With the same ISO and aperture, we can only increase the shutter speed by a factor of 1,000 in order to return to the brightness of the original picture.

The NiSi 100x100mm ND64 (1.8) Neutral Density filter:

Long exposure slow shutter in low light, such as sunset and sunrise or cloudy days, a few seconds to a few minutes, still for to capture images with moving objects, like disappearing the flow of people, blurring the clouds in the sky, a sense of passing, water becoming foggy, blurred, mirrored, drawn, silk milk-like.

If the ND1000 is used, it will take too long, 16 times longer than the ND64. For example, if the ND64 is exposed for 1 minute, the ND1000 will take 16 minutes, which is not cost effective in terms of time. The result is the same, but when the exposure time is too long, there will be noise or other unpredictable and unexpected factors. The Nisi's filters are also waterproof, oil and scratch resistant, which is very friendly to photographers who shoot outdoors.

Overall, the Nisi V6 filter holder is a great improvement over the V5 in terms of design, with many small details from the photographer's practical use point of view, excellent quality, and solves the problem of vignetting and compatibility, even the seemingly ordinary protective bag has a subtle design. With this filter holder system, it is very easy to use the 100mm square filters under the Nisi banner, these filters can be a great help in producing high-quality landscape photography.

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