I got this solely to be able to take pictures of the sun, and the extremely rare instances my 10 stop doesnt apply. It is dark enough for both. Some reviewers are claiming it is too dark and that they are having to crank ISO up. Look at their settings and you can see that they have no idea what they are doing or talking about. F11-ISO 2500, 1/360 sec? Turn your ISO down, slow shutter down, use a tripod and image stability and you will get a "normal" picture. There is no reason to turn your ISO up, that is just dumb. ISO is compensatory for lack of light to increase shutter speed to a hand holdable level, or to compensate in scenes where movement, timing and lack of available light are an issue. It is not for compensating for lack of light while using a filter to block out what you then try to compensate for. The filter does exactly what it is supposed to do, block light. You want to compensate for blocked or lack of light, slow shutter speed down...THEN you wont have a grainy picture. The only quirk i have about the filter itself is that there are no "markings" on the side indicating what f-stop rating the filter is, just Nano-x marking. Other than that, it is exactly what it is supposed to be, a solar filter...