“With other filters, if you put a two on, you would think it is seriously diffused. “I use the full range from a quarter through a two,” he adds. Adding the Hollywood Black Magic does away with that. When you are shooting HD, you are suddenly looking at an unfiltered image. “They combine the smaller lenslets of HD Classic Soft and added Black Frost. “They are nothing short of amazing,” he says, enthusiastically. “One of my first choices was to add Schneider’s Hollywood Black Magic filters to our lenses,” says Reynolds. Then at CS 1 the bare bulb flare lessens, but see the halation around the models shoulder?! The CS 2 has less bare bulb flare, but not the same amount of shoulder halation? Yet the diffusion on the face increase with the CS 1 and 2? Will have to check those filters of mine.When cinematographer Brian Reynolds began prep for the Fox/ABC half-hour comedy series Better Off Ted, his challenge was to trim the budget and keep the quality look as well as the 11-hour work day.

Note the bare bulb flare increasing from CS 1/8 to 1/2.

There is an anomoly with the Classic Soft 1 and to a lesser degree, the CS2. Shot with a Canon 50D, Portrait shooting mode, 400 EI, 70/200 F2.8 Sigma zoom, F4 around 1/125th, JPEG. My vivacious model is actor Keliher Walsh. See Art Adam's excellent article for a good explanation of Diffusion filters: Ĭlick on Get Original Uploaded Photo, beneath the Thumbnail, and then Click on that to get the High Resolution 3000 x 2400 pixel file. We were looking for filters that modify resolution with a minimal effect on Contrast and Flare. I also included the popular Tiffen Soft/FX and Schneider Classic Soft filters. THANKS to TIFFEN and SCHNEIDER Filters for providing a set of their new Black Glimmer and Hollywood Black Magic filters for this comparison test.

Hollywood blackmagic filter