Mastering Light,One F-stop at a Time:Introducing 1/2 ND Filters in the LDX 100 Series

Klaus Weber, Director Product Marketing, Grass Valley

Whether you're capturing live sports under shifting skies or filming a concert with constantly changing lighting, one truth remains: lighting is rarely consistent. Yet delivering a clean, beautifully exposed image demands absolute precision - moment by moment, frame by frame.

At their core, cameras are tools for shaping light. Every photon that enters the lens is transformed into image data by the imager - a precisely engineered component inside the camera that converts light into picture. Our in-house developed Xenios imagers are designed to handle extreme lighting conditions with over 15 f-stops of dynamic range and exceptional detail. This enables outstanding HDR performance, including more than two f-stops (or 400%) of headroom in HLG mode.

But even with all that range, there's a sweet spot - an optimal exposure window - where imagers deliver their very best: deep blacks, rich highlights, and maximum dynamic fidelity.