There might be a million ways to enhance your videos stylistically, from playing around with lights, to slapping on some sfx in post. Today we’ll be looking at one of the quickest ways to juice up your media in-camera, and that's with filters. These pieces of glass are imbued with varying characteristics that can range from adding a slight boost of contrast to your imagery all the way to making your camera experience octuple vision. There are many form factors for filters; today we’ll specifically be looking at the screw-on kind that attach to the threaded front of your lens.
Moment CineBloom Diffusion Filter
If you ever felt that you wanted to take the edge off your footage, a diffusion filter such as the CineBloom is a great accessory. As a diffusion filter, it softens the sharper attributes that are the byproduct of digital filmmaking. It’s an especially great option for smoothing skin and reducing the severity of wrinkled complexions. Paired with emphasis on the halation of surrounding light sources, it really shines as a dream-like filter. Moment offers three levels of density, from 5%, 10%, and 20%. 5% remains on the more conservative side, with only a slight nudge in softness, while 20% adds a deeper amount of softening and light blooming. I use the 10% because it provides the perfect middle ground where footage is noticeably soft and dreamy without being extremely soft.
Tiffen Graduated Sunrise Filter
We all love a sunrise shoot―that's just a plain and simple fact in the life of an image maker; you see the sun rising, you point a camera at it. With Tiffen’s Graduated Sunrise filter you can add more oomph to your sunrise visuals easily, because it’s designed to enhance the yellow-orange hues in the sky selectively. What I love about filters like this that create a gradient is that they allow the ground elements to retain proper exposure, while placing emphasis on the main attraction of the shot, the sun and the sky surrounding it. The gradient transitions smoothly, which makes for seamless blending in-camera, so there’s no need to worry about doing any laborious, tedious masking work in post.
Neewer Kaleidoscope Prism Lens Filter
Like a kaleidoscope, this filter bends light in a way that causes subjects to be refracted multiple times across the frame, similarly to the way a kaleidoscope renders an image. This is meant to add obvious flare and style to your video; subtle isn’t exactly the name of the game here. It can be used to produce some fantastically cool and trippy visuals, making it extremely fun to experiment with it in a variety of scenarios.
Nisha Star-4 Effect Filter
Sometimes the visuals call for some bedazzling, and nothing is more bedazzling than a star filter. Nisha’s star filter transforms light sources into prominent four-pronged light streaks, introducing a sparkly and classic Hollywood-esque visual. Be wary, though―this filter will make any point of light into a star, from automobile headlights to tiny reflections from glass and water―the bedazzling can be overwhelming if you’re not prepared to be a star.
Moment CineFlare Gold Streak
Similar to a star filter, but not identical, this CineFlare Gold Streak transforms sources of light by producing a large light-saber-like streak across the image. This is a really neat filter to use if you want to emulate the iconic lens flares that anamorphic lenses produce, without having to pay anamorphic lens prices. Moment makes two iterations of this lens, one that creates gold streaks and one that creates blue streaks. I enjoy pairing the gold with warm scenes that offer a great deal of sunlight, while the blue streak is perfect for creating a sci-fi like feel in cooler scenes.
ANDYCINE Photographic Crystal Ball
Hear me out. Although this one isn’t a screw-on filter and has the word “photographic” in its name, this was just too fun an option to leave out. What videographer hasn’t used photo gear to shoot video at one point in their life? This majestic crystal ball-looking contrivance is an inexpensive and creative way to add unique distortions and spectral light effects to your image, simply by placing it in front of your lens. It's threaded for a ¼"-20 mount, which makes it easily mountable, especially if you’re rocking a camera cage with articulating arms. For another cool application, you could just shine a light through the ball to cast eye-catching light effects across your frame.
Filters are a great and fun way to add immediate flair to your image. If you love experimenting and playing around with your visuals, these filters could be a great addition to your kit. Which of these filters caught your eye the most? If you have a favorite filter that wasn’t listed here, let us know in the Comments section what that might be. We’d love to hear about it!
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