dobmatt
First Officer
Flight distance : 1831050 ft
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Despite my selfconfidence in amateur photography I was surprised to find that the so called Neutral Density filters (a must in our business) aren't actually neutral. After examining rough footage taken during first summer season with my Inspire 1 Pro I was under impression that the material is somehow tinted with yellow-ish, sometimes purple-ish haze. I was using mainly a pair of Polar Pro filters from basic 3-piece set, ND8 and PL. The issue is fixable in post production process, but only to a degree. Smelling a fish, I took some test images without any filters attached. As expected, images were much better balanced, without false coloration.
To confirm my suspicions I've purchased a similiar pair of filters made by renowned german B&W brand and did the comparison. Here are the results:
Bracketed images of neutral gray board were taken in cloudy daylight with White Balance set to 5600K, during 10 minute session. Indeed, Polar Pro filters exhibit strong warming coloration (with strange exeption of ND16 filter which provides equally brutal cooling properties). As expected B&W filters are much more neutral, introducing only very subtle and palatable cooling effect. For change Promaster Variable ND filter, used on my Oly 45mm lens, is delivering a horrible yellow/magenta tint.
The set of Polar Pro filters I owe is probably 2 years old and by now - perhaps - the company already refined the manufacturing process. I don't know that for sure ... It's also possible that I'm trying to split the hair here, suffering the "uncurable perfectionist" syndrom ...
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