Freewell VND X MIST filters for DJI Mini 3 Pro
Dji Mini 3 Pro with Freewell VND X MIST 6-9 stop filter
When I first started making videos, I thought that variable neutral density filters (VND) are unnecessary and not worth the cost to my wallet and image quality. After all, standard neutral density filters (ND) are cheaper, have less negative impact on image quality and surely I never be in such a hurry that I don't have time to change filters? Right?
Well.. yes and no. It's true that standard ND filters have less unwanted impact on image quality than their more expensive VND cousins, but the convenience of the VND is just so priceless. And sometimes (actually often) the ones with slightly poorer image quality is preferred and actually filter manufacturers go great lenghts to make the image quality even "worse".
So welcome to the world of mist filters. They exist to make your digital image look worse. And when I say worse, I mean better. The problem with digital photo/videography has always been the harshness of digital format. It lacks the smoothness of realism. That's where the mist filters come in to play. They scatter the light hitting the lens just enough to create that smoothness and even out the contrast. Surely lots of this could be achieved in postprocess, but why bother when you can do it organically straight out of the camera. Especially with video. No need for heavy glow filters in post anymore.
So what have this to do with VND filters? Well Freewell decided to melt these two filters together and make the VND X MIST filters. It’s like catching two flies with one strike.
These filters have more use in videography to achieve certain shutter angles and such, but it's not say that these don't have use in photography as well.
So let’s see how they perform with my Dji Mini 3 Pro drone.
The Freewell VND X MIST filters come in two varieties; 1 to 5 stops and 6-9 stops. They come in a protective case.
Let’s take a look at the most important aspect of these filters; the image quality and what the “mist” adds to the picture.
These images are exported from the RAW files of the drone with slight adjustment to the exposure to match the images.
The mist part of the filter create a nice softness to the image and gets rid of the digital harshness quite well. In these images we can see that that at the maximum ND setting, the filters cause some X-pattern which becomes visible as darkness at the two corners of the image. This is the biggest issue with VND filters. These Freewell filters have hard stops, so the X-pattern doesn't get any worse than that, but I'm definitely going to avoid the extremes of these filters.
Otherwise I like the mist effect that softens the over-exposed sun and the high contrast forest below.
Looking away from the sun the effect is more subtle, but there's still that nice softness and smoothness in the images with VND X MIST filter.
Again the X-pattern is a problem at the extremes of the filters as the two corners (right top, left bottom) start to fade in to black, so this confirms that it's better to stay away from the extremes.
Side-by-side comparison shows the mist effect on the forest. The 6 to 9 stop filter seems to have more of that than the 1 to 5 stop filter.
