How to use GoPro ND filters for motorcycling plus demo

[@ToadmcNinja]

Love the new video ! Instantly recognised that bridge lol

[@MotoRidesAustralia]

Thanks mate 👍😀

[@k_plax]

Great vid and explanation. So on a fire trail on a sunny day where youve got bright sun mixed with speckled shady sections from trees, do you keep you ISO locked at min/max 100 always? Ive tried these ND filters on my Gopro 11 and found the ND8 was too dark. But I had left my ISO as is, locked at 1600max

[@brentbat]

On my last Flinders trip I just had an "aha revelation about how GoPro works with NDs. I was leaving max ISO on 800iso thinking that the camera would leave iso on 100 unless it got darker... but I don't believe that is the case. I now think that gopro's exposure algorithm is cranking up ISO earlier than I would expect (perhaps trying to maximise shutter speed), so it was: a) diminishing effect of ND filter and b) increasing noise. Now I'm locking iso at 100min and 100max and just making sure that I'm not going too heavy on ND filter. ND16 for sun, ND8 for shade. I wish GoPro would give us SOME exposure aids... I'd be happy with shutter speed and iso displayed on the back (as an option).

[@MotoRidesAustralia]

Yep, exactly; I found the same thing with ISO, exactly what you described. What you can do, however, is use the GoPro Labs "Max Shutter Angle" QR. As you know, shutter angle and shutter speed are reversed; it always takes me longer than I'll admit to working out those numbers ;-P but with a 25FPS shot, I use the 90-degree lock, which keeps the shutter from dropping under 1/100. Therefore when it's bright, it only goes up from there, rather than down, so you can maintain nice stability.

[@brentbat]

@@MotoRidesAustralia Interesting. I hadn't thought about using the max shutter angle functionality to limit shutter speed. I installed the labs functionality for a while, but I was having reliability issues with it, so I took it off the camera. How are you finding the camera reliability with the Labs software installed?

[@peterdd4994]

Back in the days of film… a ND filter is/was used to capture details in the highlights (white) that would be normally be blown out (meaning no details in), movement of the subject (if important or not?) is the trade off to capture details in the whites. Think big white fluffy clouds in a landscape shot, as a big white featureless blob in the image or not. Also, back in the film days, ND filters worked in the base power of 2, mean a No 2 filter was 1 (photographic) stop, No 4 was 2 stops, No 8 was 3 stops, No 16 was 4 stops and so on. With action cameras (digital sensor), there’s certain simplicities and assumption’s (mostly auto-exposure) built into the camera that aren’t changeable… If youre going to really critically review quality of the image exposure? Like most things, there’s always trade-offs, if you change one thing… something else will change also.

[@brentbat]

ND filters for action cams still use the same measure of density. ND8= 3stops etc.