Some of you reading this are wondering if this can be real. After all, I did promise that we would (and I quote) "Never carry a variable ND filter".

>Sigh<. I admit it, dear renter. I did say that. And quite frankly, I still stand by my thinking behind it. I still believe that standard ND filters are better overall in terms of image quality and lack of visual artifacts.

But I get it. When you're on the move with a tight deadline, it can be so incredibly handy to keep one filter on the lens and simply change the level of brightness reduction as your lighting levels change. Enough of you begged us to get them that I pretty much had to comply. Sure, we do curation of products to make sure you're always getting the best, but at some point we simply had to bend our policy due to overwhelming market demand.

That being said, you MUST be aware of the trade-offs when using a variable ND, the primary of which is the fact that you can get some funky-looking skies depending on the time of day and the direction of sunlight. This has nothing to do with the quality or price of the filter, by the way. They all operate under the same principle (two polarizing filters moving relative to each other to change the occlusion), so no matter how expensive the filter, it is going to cause problems with some shooting situations. It's just physics. Everyone knows you can't argue with physics.

This particular filter adjusts from 1.3 to 8 stops of density, giving you a nice wide range for just about any situation. This is equivalent to ND2.5-ND256, for those who use that particular way of measuring filter density. In addition, there are a whopping 36 coatings on the glass to ensure the best possible color with the least ghosting possible. No one likes being ghosted, amirite? This is especially true for optics.

It's got handy markings on the outer rim of the filter to show the various densities, and it also has an "x" on the rim that indicates the density point at which cross polarization (the dreaded X pattern) begins. This is where you might start to experience the funky sky phenomenon I described above. That's pretty darn handy. It also has hard stops at either end of the density range, making sure you don't go all the way around and accidentally get to a density you weren't meaning to.

So please, rent this filter and tell me how wrong I was to hold off as long as I did. After all, your usage absolutely means more than my silly opinions.