okay so i finally upgraded from my mini 2 to the mini 4 pro last month and im trying to get into more cinematic stuff. been reading about the 180 degree shutter rule and i get the concept i think, basically you want your shutter speed to be double your framerate. im mostly shooting in 4k 30fps so i guess i need an ND to get down to 1/60 in bright sun

but like there are so many filter brands and sets out there and the price range is insane. some sets on amazon are like 20 bucks and then polar pro is like 80-90 for just a few filters. is the expensive stuff actually better or is this one of those things where the cheap ones are fine. i dont want to spend a ton but also dont want jelly footage or whatever

the cheap amazon ones are genuinely hit or miss, ive bought two different budget sets and one was fine and one introduced this horrible purple color cast that i couldnt fully fix in post. for what the mini 4 pro costs it feels weird to cheap out on filters but i totally get it

personally i went with Freewell and thought they were a solid middle ground, not polar pro prices but noticeably better than the random brands. for sunny days in 4k30 youll mostly be reaching for the ND64 or ND64/PL if theres water or glass in the shot. the polarizer makes such a difference for certain scenes its kind of wild the first time you use one

honestly i flew without ND filters for like a year and my footage was fine. people way overcomplicate this stuff imo. if youre just posting to youtube or social media most viewers wont notice the difference between 1/60 and 1/120 shutter. but if your doing serious video work then yeah probably get decent ones