ND on long telephotos

Andrew S10 wrote:

You are right that some ND filters soften the image, and it's especially noticeable at long focal lengths.

Old Cavisions are really bad, but the new ones might be better.

Formatt Firecrest Ultra series touts a precision lap and polish, which supposedly means that there's no visible loss in sharpness, even when using focal lengths over 100mm, but I haven't tested mine to confirm the claim.

My SLR Magic VND had no perceptible loss in sharpness at 200mm on an APS-C camera with an OLPF, but I don't think there's a 95mm option.

Aurora-Aperture makes a 95mm VND, but my 5-11 stop one introduced crosshatching toward max attenuation, despite the hard stops claiming to prevent it.

It's hard not to go with a matte box or square filter holder for a lens with such large filter threads, although Fotmatt, Tiffen, B+W, Heliopan, etc. all make screw-on 95mm ND filters.

P.S. I like to use a CPL when shooting outdoors, as it helps hold sky detail and applies a nice selective contrast and saturation in camera. There are also Graduated ND filters, as well as Blender/Attenuator ND filters, which can be very helpful in holding sky detail on certain shots.

I do use CPL (and know that VND includes one) to eliminate reflection and darken the sky when needed. That is much more for stills; but the tele video stuff not so much. I am hoping with the S1H/atomos combo I have enough latitude to not have to use a graduated filter.

Are people finding the need for that with the latest generation sensors with improved DR & log profiles? Most of what I've shot with my current cameras has been interior/controlled lighting (or stills where I shot raw and would opt to adjust in post rather than deal with filters).