FSND Filter | ND Filters & Polarizers | Camera Systems

Many creative choices are difficult, but your choice of neutral density filters shouldn't be. ARRI Full-Spectrum Neutral Density (FSND) filters offer superior image control with maximum flexibility and no optical compromise.

UHD and HDR are the future of filmmaking. With increased image quality comes the need for superior optical quality. Low-cost filters introduce artifacts such as flare, glare, reduced color saturation, and optical distortions, all of which compromise the integrity of high dynamic range and wide color gamut images.

Many manufacturers sandwich the filtration material between two pieces of glass, which can introduce astigmatism and other optical distortions. ARRI FSND filters are surfaced coated, with highly-polished high optical quality glass as a base. They are distortion free, even when used in conjunction with long focal length lenses.

ARRI FSND filters leave image control to the cinematographer. They are perfectly color neutral, exceptionally resistant to flare and glare, protective of the color within the scene, and introduce no discernible image distortions at even the longest focal lengths. Most importantly, they eliminate far red ("IR") contamination without affecting skin tone.

ARRI Tech Tip: FSND Filter features - Thumbnail

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Internal camera filters from ALEXA Mini & AMIRA also available for Matte Boxes

Features

Faithful to your image

Color neutral and consistent from batch to batch
Perfectly preserves skin tone and doesn’t fade over time
No distortion and astigmatism when used with very long lenses (crucial for UHD)
Eliminates IR pollution on any camera
Exceptionally accurate and consistent exposure control
Advanced anti-reflective coating reduces or eliminates interactions between lens elements and adjacent filters (crucial for HDR)

Effortless handling and simple tracking

Made of extremely high-quality Schott B270i glass, with completely flat and parallel surfaces
Oil and water resistant surface coatings protect against adverse shooting conditions
Easy and fast to clean
Laser-engraved barcodes facilitate quick check-in and check-out for rental houses

Future-proof durability

C-Shaped, blackened filter edges resist chipping and reflection
Hard coated for long filter life
Long-lasting CORDURA® pouches lined with MICRODEAR® antistatic cleaning cloth

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Consistent, reliable, universal, and worry free - perfect for all shooting conditions

Quotes

While testing, we were shown ARRI’s FSND filters. I was very happy to get them because on all my previous shoots there’s been at least one scene where I had issues with neutral density filters. This is the first show where I didn’t have a single scene with issues. Usually ND filters cut the spectrum of the light, giving you washed-out skin tones or faded colors, whereas these filters do not, so they are a big step forward.

DOP Christian Rein

For me, it is very important to use the best quality filters during on-set grading. I follow the manufacturers' developments. When I first used the FSND filter, it was very convincing, I didn't see any color distortion, and since then I have always recommended this to D.O.P. Best choice for ALEXA cameras.

DIT Attila Tumbász (Known for: Radioactive, The King, The Song of Names, Bad Spies, Don't Breathe, Hercules and many more)

I’m a big fan of using real tungsten lights (not LED) and this, I’ve found, often creates infrared (IR) problems with different cameras. In situations where candle light or fire is used as a light source, since they can also emit high levels of IR, it is essential to have high-quality, full-spectrum IR filters. In my test, the winner was the ARRI FSND Filter.

DOP John Brawley (Known for: The Great, The Resident, Queen of the South, Offspring and many more)

When I take out the ARRI FSND 2.1 filter, it feels so lightweight, polished, and robust. Holding it up to my frame, I get a constant accurate color neutral image which matches my ALEXA Mini LF built in ND filters. It gives me a clean, neutral image workflow throughout my projects, whatever the backdrop.

DOP Daniel Cawthorne

Neutral density filters are used more often than any other type of filter. Their effect should be limited to one attribute: reducing the amount of light reaching the sensor, with no other visible effect. This is not an easy task, and ARRI has created a line of filters that not only meets this goal, but exceeds it in ways not matched by other manufacturers.

Film is insensitive to red at the edge of the visible spectrum. Film NDs are transparent to this frequency range of light. Digital sensors require a small amount of this “far red” light to render skin tone as healthy and vibrant, but traditional film NDs are not spectrally balanced for digital requirements: they cut most visible light, but pass too much far red. This causes color distortions that cannot be corrected in post.

Early filter attempts by other manufacturers resulted in overcompensation, rendering skin tones as dull and pasty. These filters worked on some cameras, but not all. ARRI FSND filters preserve color balance perfectly, eliminating color distortions and preserving lush skin tones. They are universal filters that produce the same high-quality result with every camera.

Many manufacturers sandwich the filter material between two pieces of glass, which introduces optical distortions, especially with long focal length lenses. Each ARRI FSND filter is manufactured out of a single, highly-polished piece of optical quality glass that is surface coated and then sealed behind an optically-clear scratch, oil, and water-resistant coating. They are distortion and worry free, even at the longest focal length.

A scene that is exposed with a T-stop of 5.6 (left example) can be exposed at 1.4 (+4 stops) when a ND 1.2 filter (-4 stops) is implemented (middle and right-hand images). When using digital cameras, attenuation of near-infrared light becomes essential to avoid false color issues (right example).
Lens: 65mm, T-stop variable, focus distance approx. 1.1m; Camera: Alexa XT, EI 3200, 25 FPS, SA 358°, WB 3200K matched to light source, open gate (image cropped for illustration), rendered to Rec 709; Matte box: ARRI SMB-1

Results of color difference in transmittance for an ARRI FSND filter (left) and a typical classic dye-based filter (right).
The inset numbers are C I E 2000(1:1:1).
ΔE ≤ 1.5 : Slight
1.5 < ΔE ≤ 3 : Noticeable
3 < ΔE ≤ 6 : Appreciable color difference

Design of ARRI Filters

Optical coating design presents big challenges, and, unsurprisingly, only a few optics manufacturers master the ultrathin metal film coating process to deliver high quality and highly repeatable performing filters. The complete multilayer thin-film coating on one clear glass substrate side is roughly a ten thousandth of the substrate’s thickness, comprising several layers or complex mixtures of dielectrics, semiconductors and metals.

The absorbing layers embedded inside the coating stack have a thickness of only a few nanometers and thickness must be controlled with a precision in the range of 0.3nm or 0.000 000 000 3 meters. To give an idea of the scale we’re talking about, grass grows about 20 to 40 nanometers per second in the summer months.

Anti-Reflective Coating

For ease of access and replacement, MPTV filters are positioned in a matte box in front of a lens. While this position is convenient, it is optically delicate, and can result in flare-like ghost reflections being focused onto the imaging sensor. The severity of visibility of this stray light is proportional to spectral radiance, which usually increases with focal length. But it is also highly dependent on the specific optical design of the deployed lens, and the associated stray light paths.

Whether this stray light is regarded as problematic, or artistically valuable, lies in the eye of the beholder, and their specific imaging requirements. To facilitate a choice to the DP, and to avoid distraction from the objective lens’ flare, ARRI FSND filters are equipped with low reflective coatings on the smooth optical surfaces, and blackening of the edge surfaces.

Durability

Matte box filters are used in harsh environments and need to fulfil the camera team’s expectations on handling robustness, reliability, and optical performance over an extended period.

In the pictures you can see scratch marks, for which the load on a diamond tip with 200µm radius was progressively increased up to 50N (proportional to approx. 5kg load), while sliding on the specimen’s surface from left to right.

The top image shows an ARRI FSND sample; the lower a reference competitor’s thin film ND filter, for which even the substrate shows spallation under the applied pressure.

Professional Cleaning Cloth for Optical-quality Glass

Permanent antistatic treatment
Soft and silky to the touch
Removes dust, dirt, and oil quickly
Durable with excellent absorbency
Both sides of the cloth may be used

Technical Data

Filter & Content	Size & Info	Weight	Ident-No.
ARRI FSND 0.3 Filter	6.6“ x 6.6“ 167,6 mm x 167,6 mm	276,6 g/0,609 lbs	K2.0013892
ARRI FSND 0.3 Filter	4“ x 5.65“ 101,6 mm x 143,5 mm	143,5 g/0,316 lbs	K2.0013887
ARRI FSND 0.6 Filter	6.6“ x 6.6“ 167,6 mm x 167,6 mm	276,6 g/0,609 lbs	K2.0013894
ARRI FSND 0.6 Filter	4“ x 5.65“ 101,6 mm x 143,5 mm	143,5 g/0,316 lbs	K2.0013901
ARRI FSND 0.9 Filter	6.6“ x 6.6“ 167,6 mm x 167,6 mm	276,6 g/0,609 lbs	K2.0013896
ARRI FSND 0.9 Filter	4“ x 5.65“ 101,6 mm x 143,5 mm	143,5 g/0,316 lbs	K2.0013895
ARRI FSND 1.2 Filter	6.6“ x 6.6“ 167,6 mm x 167,6 mm	276,6 g/0,609 lbs	K2.0013898
ARRI FSND 1.2 Filter	4“ x 5.65“ 101,6 mm x 143,5 mm	143,5 g/0,316 lbs	K2.0013904
ARRI FSND 1.5 Filter	6.6“ x 6.6“ 167,6 mm x 167,6 mm	276,6 g/0,609 lbs	K2.0013900
ARRI FSND 1.5 Filter	4“ x 5.65“ 101,6 mm x 143,5 mm	143,5 g/0,316 lbs	K2.0013897
ARRI FSND 1.8 Filter	6.6“ x 6.6“ 167,6 mm x 167,6 mm	276,6 g/0,609 lbs	K2.0013902
ARRI FSND 1.8 Filter	4“ x 5.65“ 101,6 mm x 143,5 mm	143,5 g/0,316 lbs	K2.0013890
ARRI FSND 2.1 Filter	6.6“ x 6.6“ 167,6 mm x 167,6 mm	276,6 g/0,609 lbs	K2.0013905
ARRI FSND 2.1 Filter	4“ x 5.65“ 101,6 mm x 143,5 mm	143,5 g/0,316 lbs	K2.0013903
ARRI FSND 2.4 Filter	6.6“ x 6.6“ 167,6 mm x 167,6 mm	276,6 g/0,609 lbs	K2.0013906
ARRI FSND 2.4 Filter	4“ x 5.65“ 101,6 mm x 143,5 mm	143,5 g/0,316 lbs	K2.0013891
ARRI FSND Filter Basic Set 4" x 5.56"	0.3/0.6/0.9 Filter with 4“ x 5.65“ & Optical Cleaning Cloth 14.6" x 17.7"	-	KK.0019784
ARRI FSND Filter Pro Set 4" x 5.56"	0.3/0.6/0.9/1.2/1.5/1.8/2.1/2.4 Filter with 4“ x 5.65“ & Optical Cleaning Cloth 14.6" x 17.7"	-	KK.0019789
ARRI FSND Filter Basic Set 6.6" x 6.6"	0.3/0.6/0.9/ Filter with 6.6“ x 6.6“ & Optical Cleaning Cloth 14.6" x 17.7"	-	KK.0019785
ARRI FSND Filter Pro Set 6.6" x 6.6"	0.3/0.6/0.9/1.2/1.5/1.8/2.1/2.4 with 6.6“ x 6.6" & Optical Cleaning Cloth 14.6" x 17.7"	-	KK.0019787
Optical Cleaning Cloth 14.6" x 17.7"	14.6" x 17.7"	-	K2.0016922