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Contrast Filters


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Hey guys,

 

I am currently interested in trying a filter that might allow my digital camera (Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro) to achieve a more pleasant rolloff from shadows to highlights. I know that with controled lighting we can get close to whatever look we want, but sometimes (especially with strong sunny days and high contrast situations) the rolloff gets too "digital". So I've been reading a lot about contrast filters, especially the ones I mention below.

 

Tiffen Low Contrast

Tiffen Ultra Contrast

Tiffen Satin

 

I know they are different and the best would be to rent and try them out. Unfortunately, I can't even buy them where I'm from, so this will have to be an online purchase as informed as I can get it to be... So here's what I want from these filters:

 

1 - pleasant rolloff in high contrast situations

2 - subtle glow of hot spots (preferably not enough to make the filtered look too obvious)

 

I'll be using them with Zeiss ZF.2 glass.

 

Thanks for helping!

Tiago

Edited by Tiago Pimentel
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Hi Tiago, 

Tiffen's diffusion triangle is helpful in identifying the relative effects of their filters; I've attached a copy of the diagram.  Tiffen also has a video demonstrating many of their filters: https://vimeo.com/92660033  The three types of filters you mention all work in different ways.  

Despite the placement on the chart, Low Contrast filters do have an effect that is a bit like halation - light from bright areas bleeds out into the areas immediately around them, adding a bit of "glow."  This might help with the perception of highlight roll-off in some cases where the highlights are clipped, since it causes a gradual increase in brightness which gets stronger as it gets closer to the highlight.  The highlight glow from low con filters has had a cool, cyan color cast with the filters I've used, though the filter set I used was fairly old; newer low cons or equivalents from other manufacturers might be different. 

Tiffen calls the Satin filters a white halation filter, so they work a bit like a pro mist but they are more subtle.  I would expect to see a mild neutral/white halation around highlights, which might also seem to help to blend the edges of clipped or near-clipping highlights, but could cause some loss of detail which may give the opposite impression. 

Ultra contrast filters are different altogether - without any halation, light from highlights is spread throughout the rest of the image, which lifts the shadows.  So this doesn't help highlight roll-off directly, but you can use this to your advantage by reducing your exposure slightly to retain more highlight detail, while still retaining shadow information that would otherwise be lost or have more noise.  How much effect you get for a given filter strength is somewhat scene dependent. 

Testing is of course strongly advised.  Hope this helps!

Best, 

Daniel
 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi guys,

 

I ended up buying a Tiffen Low Con 1 to test it with my Ursa Mini camera and I have to say I do love the look. I don't think it's as simple as just lowering contrast. It's doing something to the way everything rolls off (especially the focus to out of focus areas). Everything looks more natural and less "digital" to me. I wanted to try the Ultracon to see the difference but the strength that people usually recommend (Ultracon 2) is not available anywhere. Do you think I should go for 1 or 3?

 

Cheers

Tiago

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You probably need the #3 UltraCon if you want to come closer to the effect of the #1 LowCon -- the #1 UltraCon is pretty subtle, probably too subtle.

Watch out when you pan into a very bright area because everything can wash out.

The UltraCon look is more of a faint milkiness that affects sharpness less whereas the regular LowCon causes more halation around bright areas and softens the image more.

You might also like trying the lightest strengths of Double Fog (a combination of Fog and LowCon) and Smoque.

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I believe the Tiffen Black Satin was their response to the mist-diffusion combo filter that Schneider makes, the Hollywood Black Magic, which is always a 1/8 Black Frost plus degrees of HD Classic Soft diffusion.  

The Black Satin (I think) uses a GlimmerGlass as a base (not sure what strength) for the mist effect and then degrees of Digital Diffusion/FX for diffusion. So by design, these filters are meant to soften detail more than a LowCon or UltaCon.

Digital Diffusion/FX is just the Black Diffusion/FX with the black dots removed because they were coming into focus on 2/3" HD camcorders.  Same story with the HD Classic Soft, they were made with smaller dimples in the glass because the dimples in the Classic Softs were coming into focus on 2/3" HD camcorders (remember this was in the early 2000's when everyone starting shooting on the Sony F900, etc.)

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Thanks David. I already own a Hollywood Blackmagic 1/4 so buying a Tiffen Black Satin would be a bit redundant, right? Those Double Fog filters you mentioned look promising, but I can't find a "real world" video that shows that filter. Will look harder. Thanks!

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After learning about Double Fog filters from David (thank you so much!), I got very interested in  them, too!  Could not find any video tests on modern cameras, either.

Our 1/4 Double Fog arrived recently.. not possible to shoot a video at the moment, but we were able to shoot the moon timelapse from balcony, using a Sony a6300. The filter is very beautiful and effective at creating foggy atmosphere. Surprisingly, I found even the effect of such a low grade may be pretty strong for APS-C and M43 sensors. (Tiffen has the lowest 1/8 strength on backorder, we hope to get and test it when the situation becomes better...)

 

Crescent-Clean.jpg

Crescent-Double-Fog.jpg

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