ND Filters With Your iPhone: Yes or No? By Glyn Dewis

Excerpted and Summarized from Essential Gear for the Modern iPhone Photographer with Glyn Dewis (iPhone Photography Conference 2024). To watch the whole clip, check out the video below!

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So… neutral density (ND) filters with an iPhone? Well, yes and no. It really depends on what you’re using them for—video or photography. Let’s break it down.

ND Filters for Video

If you’re shooting video on your iPhone, using ND filters makes total sense—especially if you want to achieve that smooth, cinematic motion blur.

When filming, you ideally want your shutter speed to be double your frame rate. So, if you’re shooting at 25 frames per second, your shutter speed should be locked at 1/50 of a second. The problem? Outdoors, even with manual exposure settings, it’s tough to get a properly exposed shot at that slow of a shutter speed without an ND filter.

You can see here, when I don’t have a neutral density filter fitted, how overexposed the image is.

But then I add a variable neutral density filter and BAM! Perfect exposure at 25 frames per second and 1/50 of a second shutter speed. So yeah, Neutral Density Filters to use with your iPhone when you’re doing video makes total sense.

I’ve got two circular variable ND filters here that work great for this. One covers 1.5 to 5 stops, and the other goes from 6 to 9 stops. Simply twist them to adjust how much light is blocked. These are magnetic filters, so they snap right onto an adapter that fits over the 1x (24mm) iPhone lens. The cool part? You can stack them if you need even more light control.

So for video? Absolutely. ND filters give you the control you need to get that pro-level footage on your iPhone.

ND Filters for Photography

Now, this is where things change. If you’re thinking of using ND filters for long exposure photography on an iPhone, I don’t see the point—at least, not yet.

I use an app called ReeXpose for long-exposure shots, which saves RAW files. But here’s the issue: it only produces 12MP Bayer RAW files, not 48MP ProRAW files. My initial thought was to use a pro camera app like Reeflex or Moment, pair it with ND filters to slow the shutter, and capture 48MP long exposures. Sounds great in theory, right?

But no. The second you manually adjust settings like shutter speed and ISO, the file size drops from 48MP to 12MP. And while adding ND filters does slow down the shutter, it won’t go below 1/15 of a second—nowhere near the half-second or full-second exposures I need for those the crashing waves in my Seascape shots. No matter how many filters I stack (and trust me, I stacked a lot—29 stops worth!), the shutter just won’t go slower than 1/15 of a second.

Unless Apple changes iOS to allow full manual control while keeping the 48MP resolution, ND filters for iPhone photography don’t make much sense.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, this gives you something to think about before investing in ND filters for your iPhone. For video? A definite yes. But for long exposure photography? Not so much. Until Apple updates its software, ND filters won’t give you the results you’re after.

Want to dive even deeper into iPhone photography? Join me and 13 other iPhone photography experts at this year’s iPhone Photography Conference, hosted by KelbyOne Live! We’ll be sharing tips, tricks, and techniques to help you get pro-level shots with the camera in your pocket. Hope to see you there!

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