Why are nd filters still used with digital?

I'm kind of new to the world of DSLRs, but it just occurred to me from what I know, that nd filters should really be a thing of the past. I mean nd filters are just there to reduce the amount of light right? This is such a basic thing to do when dealing with digital imaging. Other than holding onto the past, why wouldn't there be a way to set your ISO as low as 1? Or am I just totally missing something? I know some professional digital video cameras like the sony f65 have internal nd filters, but unless that's a software thing, then that also seems a bit silly. Can someone educate me if I'm not understanding.
Cheers,
Cg.
Canon 6D,Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM, Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM, Sigma 1.4 x EX DG Teleconverter, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro USM, Canon EF 50mm f/1.8, EF 40mm f/2.8 pancake, Sigma AF 8-16mm f/4.5-5.6 DC HSM, Pentax 400mm f/5.6

Many "effects" filters are no longer required as the effects can be applied with digital editing software... so while it's true that many filters are "a thing of the past", ND filters are _not_ actually "effects" filters.  What they do cannot be simulated by editing an image.
An "good" ND filter wont change the look of the image itself... everything should appear sharp and without any color cast.  What it does... is change your shooting CIRCUMSTANCES.
Suppose I'm shooting with an outdoor "fill" flash on a sunny day and my flash can't do "high speed sync" mode... so I'm limited to max flash sync shutters speeds of, say, 1/200th (this varies based on your specific camera model.)  The "Sunny 16" rule says that I the normal exposure for full mid-day sun using f/16 is to use the inverse of the ISO as the shutter speed.  So at a low base ISO of ISO 100, that'd be 1/100th.  But the side-effect of f/16 is a _very_ broad depth of field and suppose I want a deliberately blurred background.  I can increase the shutter to 1/200th and this will let me drop my f-stop to f/11... but that's still a LOT of depth of field and no nicely blurred background.  If I wanted to bring that down to, say, f/4... I'd have to find a way to dump 3 full stops worth of light.    I can't just drop the f-stop to f/4 and increase the shutter by 3 stops to 1/1600th because that's WELL beyond flash-sync speed and my flash (for purposes of this example) can't do high-speed sync.  
One really great way to dump 3 stops of light so I can drop my f-stop down without having to speed up my shutter is... a 3 stop ND filter (sometimes called an ND 0.9 -- every "0.1" worth of density blocks 1/3rd of a stop of light.)
Another _VERY_ common use of the ND filter is to get shutters speeds much slower than possible without the filter.
Suppose I want to take a photo of a waterfall and I want a slow shutter so that I can have that gorgeously blurred dreamy looking water.  At f/16 my shutter is still at 1/100th... I could go to f/22 and drop the shutter to 1/50th... but that's still pretty fast.   If I used 5 stops I could get the shutter down to 1/4 second.  A 10 stop ND (ND 3.0) would let me bring that down to 8 seconds... 
The final images in these examples would still have the same amount of light and there'd be no tint or color-cast on the images... what you're REALLY doing is changing your shooting "circumstances" which allows you to use different exposure settings than would otherwise be possible without the filter.
Hope that helps!
Regards,
Tim
Tim Campbell
5D II, 5D III, 60Da

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