Neutral density filter advice

Jstein wrote:
Hello everyone,

I want to start experimenting with neutral density filters and I was
hoping to get some advice on what brands, transmittance / f-stop
reduction. I am not 100% certain of how the rating scale works. Some
are measured in attenuation factor, f-Stop reduction and
transmittance. Could someone please clarify this in layman's terms?
I am shooting with a digital Rebel. I want to throw ND filters into
the mix with some time lapse photography & single timed exposures I
have done. I don't need top of the line but I don't want to get junk
either. Can someone recommended maybe 3 filters to get me started that
cover most of the spectrum. Any advice would be most appreciated.
Thanks

-Jesse

Don't have any recommendations on brands. Technicians at work used to
buy them- now I use my wife's.

The hard thing is converting Density to f-stops if you are not real
fluent in math. Because of the wide range of values of attenuation, the
filters are rated in Density, a logarithmic scale. D of 1 is ten times
attenuation (transmittance of 0.1), 2 is a hundred times, 3 is a
thousand times.

Since you can handle several times attenuation with the f/ stop, I
recommend the higher densities, like a 1, maybe a 1.6 and a 2. Now,
these things can be stacked, using a two stacked with a 2 to make a 3.
One of the neat things is the densities of a stack add.

I am sure if you google it, you can find a conversion of density to f-stops.