Hvx200 Filters

thefilmaddict

thefilmaddict

Veteran
I'm sure that we have all thought about the big things like tripods, storage and lighting kits for the HVX200, but what about the little things like filters?

1. I want to imitate the look of film as much as possible (a look many of you are also going for). Will filters help get me that look?

I went to the Tiffen site and they have an 82mm Film Look DV Kit containing the following filters:

Black Diffusion FX® ½
Black Pro-Mist® ½
Warm Black Diffusion FX® ¼
Soft/FX® 1

2. Have any of you used these filters before?

3. How were your results using these filters (is Tiffen the way to go)?

4. Would you use all three at once? If not, which one is the must have (for those of us that can only afford 1)?

5. The filters are sold at different strengths. I want the effect to be subtle. It would be great if the filter was subtle enough that you could use it through the entire film. I think that if you go too strong with these filters, your image looks like a bad soap opera or shots stand out like a female star in a bad black and white movie. Do these strengths look about right or should I go for filters that are lower in strength?

6. Do these filters cause problem with compression?

7. Will they introduce extra noise, or will it even out the noise and create a more pleasing filmic image?

8. Does putting these filters on the lens degrade the image at all?

9. Would you want to avoid any (or all) of these filters if you planned on doing a film out? Perhaps you might suggest stay away from all filters.

10. I've also heard of low contrast filters. Do they help you achieve a more filmic look?

11. What about Neutral Density filters that would help you open up the iris in order to introduce less depth of field (to get a more cinematic look)? Are there other filters to get less depth of filed?

12. Any other filters you would recommend?

13. This kit is call the DV kit? Will DV filters work on an HD filter?

14. Are you tired of my questions (I'm sure the answer to that is YES)?

I wish I could just buy all of these filters and experiment, but I'm a little broke right now (as I just purchased the camera and a lot of other stuff!).

Thanks for your input. You guys are very knowledgeable and I look forward to hearing your advice. Sure, using filters is subjective, but I'm not looking for facts to answer every question, personal feelings are fine, too.


PS
15. I also wanted to confirm that the HVX200 will take 82mm bayonet type filters (is this correct)?

16. Other must have little things to get the most out of the HVX200?
 
First off, the HVX takes 82mm threaded filters not bayonet filters. The outer bayonet is for lens hoods and wide/tele lenses.

Second, for almost all purposes, you will want to shoot clean and use a program such as Magic Bullet to do your filter effects. Especially since you have the benefit of 4:2:2 color space you will want to preserve your detail as much as possible. However some filters are still useful...

#1 Circular polarizer. This should be the first filter you buy. It allows you to darken blue skies and eliminate reflections in glass and other shiny objects. I'ts one of the few filters that has no good post equivalent and does not affect your image quality (IQ)

#2 Medium soft edge Graduated Neutral Density (.3, .6 & .9) These 3 filters allow you to balance the exposure of a scene in which the sky or background is considerably brighter than the foreground. This allows your to keep your scene from blowing out and looking all video. These three grades are usually enough to cover most circumstances. If you need to choose one go for the .6 (2 Stop) first then the .9 (3 stop) then the .3 (1 Stop). Lee filters makes a very affordable set of optical resin Grad NDs for still photographers but you have to use them in an open top 4x filter holder or matte box.

#3 .3 ND (one stop) Sometimes you need just one stop more or less than the built in ND filters can give you. This makes up that difference.

#4 Black Promist 1/2. This is optional, I would say Magic Bullet's post filter does as good a job, but sometimes you don't have the time to do post effects, so this is a good subtle filter to lessen harsh lines and smooth out fine detail while not affecting sharpness too much.

Hope this helps.
 
what about Soft/FX???

Is called.. THE MAGIC FILTER....rigth???

loved for the talent... specially that girls with some face issues rigth??..

Any comment about Soft/FX?...

Thanks..

Fer
 
hey!!!! guys!!!... this is really interesting!!...
make your opinion... come on!!..

Where is the peaple from Panasonic... any advice?? any warning about
less quality??... como on!!.. i allready order my TIFFEN FILM KIT 82mm...
gimme a word.. please!!

Fernando
 
Generally speaking these filters are used in film a great deal esp 35mm, to cut the inherent sharpness. We also used them a great deal in SD video - Beta & DV with
2/3" cameras for the same reason, because of the sharp nastiness that came from the enhancement needed to make those formats work.
However with mini DV cameras DP's tended to avoid them because you were always fighting the inherent softness of the 1/3" chip.
With the advent of DVCPro50 and HD formats the video didn't need to be enhanced so much and so there was again not so much need for those filters.
In HD its a personal call, some people use diffusion & some avoid because sometimes you can see the effects of filter too much.
With an HVX I would err on the side of keeping a clean image because you are starting off with the 1/3" chip. Progressive gives you plenty of film look by itself. But try them . Those are a nice group of filters, maybe you will love them.
It also might depend on the style of the piece - a rock video can handle anything.
 
One other thing about a polarizer -- not only does it remove glare from shiny objects, but it can remove glare from leaves in an outdoors shot. The result is a sharper, more saturated picture if you're shooting leaves and grass (which can both be reflective). So, as long as you're pointing the camera the right way (90 degrees from the sun) you may be able to really sharpen up your outdoors nature photography with a polarizer.
 
Filters are a completely personal taste and are used for special looks and are not meant to give you any more of a "film look." Without a doubt, a polarizer is a must and a set of ND filters, as well as flat or clear filter in case your shooting in wind, dust, sand storms, anything that can damage lens coating. Keep in mind if you have a filter on and any backlight you need to keep it out of the lens, or not, depending on effect.

For the last couple of feature films I have done we have used only a polarizer, nd grads,
and a soft fx 1/2 or 1, and only for close ups of women. But I would probably not use any filtration on wide shots with prosumer/smaller chipped cameras unless I needed an effect. Like a tobacco /sepia look.

I do however use a special stocking net on the back of a lens, on removable lens cameras, that gives me a really soft look. But I only use that where it is called for in the story.

The best way to get your "film look" with video is to light it well.
 
The Hoya circ polarizers come in different thicknesses, and also add multicoatings to help focus the different colors to the same point. With digital, that makes all the difference in the world.

Canon has been lucky with it's wider element lens change back in the 80's.
It helps them obtain sharper images in todays digital world.

Many lenses today, are made using formulas that were derived from using film cameras. In short, they use a small part of the inner lenses to focus on the chip.
With film, it didn't really matter because it can receive light from a wider angle and still hit the film plane with little distortion or loss of saturation.

On digital sensors, the rays of light need to come from a more direct angle.
If it doesn't, then the image will be softer, and not as sharp. The leica glass is made the old way, and does not have the benifits it would had it been made for digital.

The best way I can describe it is: with a cheap flat panel monitor, if you are at an angle, the image does not look as saturated, or sharp, or clear. This is the same way a ccd chip sees images.

Canon got lucky in that when they swithed to the wider eos format, they accidentally gained ground by having the lens focus light in a more direct path.
Now, they are starting to improve on that by designing the lenses to improve this factor. I am getting off topic...

In any case, the circ polarizer does this as well.
Some brands may change the color of the image because they do nothing to correct for the color wave lengths. The Hoya brand addresses this by multi coating the filter in the same way some lenses are multi coated.

This process is what makes them over $200, while others are only about $75.

I have never worked for Hoya, but do endorse them.
I did work for Canon for about 10 years, so I may be biased, but I am still getting an HVX200 :-)
 
evinsky said:
First off, the HVX takes 82mm threaded filters not bayonet filters. The outer bayonet is for lens hoods and wide/tele lenses.

Second, for almost all purposes, you will want to shoot clean and use a program such as Magic Bullet to do your filter effects. Especially since you have the benefit of 4:2:2 color space you will want to preserve your detail as much as possible. However some filters are still useful...

#1 Circular polarizer. This should be the first filter you buy. It allows you to darken blue skies and eliminate reflections in glass and other shiny objects. I'ts one of the few filters that has no good post equivalent and does not affect your image quality (IQ)

#2 Medium soft edge Graduated Neutral Density (.3, .6 & .9) These 3 filters allow you to balance the exposure of a scene in which the sky or background is considerably brighter than the foreground. This allows your to keep your scene from blowing out and looking all video. These three grades are usually enough to cover most circumstances. If you need to choose one go for the .6 (2 Stop) first then the .9 (3 stop) then the .3 (1 Stop). Lee filters makes a very affordable set of optical resin Grad NDs for still photographers but you have to use them in an open top 4x filter holder or matte box.

#3 .3 ND (one stop) Sometimes you need just one stop more or less than the built in ND filters can give you. This makes up that difference.

#4 Black Promist 1/2. This is optional, I would say Magic Bullet's post filter does as good a job, but sometimes you don't have the time to do post effects, so this is a good subtle filter to lessen harsh lines and smooth out fine detail while not affecting sharpness too much.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Dude..

Would you include Soft/FX in your filters top list for HVX?... or is not really a
good idea?... i heard that this filters rocks... is not working at HD??? any suggestion
to improve photography contrast?... i´ll be working with angels (i mean the caracteres) and i need this special effect of.. magic emverioment.. mistical stuff..
you know what i mean, rigth?) any suggestion? make me a top list hahaha.. please.
 
Fernando Kurezyn Jr. said:
i´ll be working with angels (i mean the caracteres) and i need this special effect of.. magic emverioment.. mistical stuff..
Click to expand...

Angels, hmm?... You need a smoke machine and a tub of petroleum jelly. Done and done! :grin:

Seriously, I'd be tempted to keep the footage sharp and add softening in post. But that's just me. And ND grads are essential.
 
Alex Leith said:
Angels, hmm?... You need a smoke machine and a tub of petroleum jelly. Done and done! :grin:

Seriously, I'd be tempted to keep the footage sharp and add softening in post. But that's just me. And ND grads are essential.
Click to expand...


haha.. yep.. a little bit of smoke machine would works perectlly... :evil:

What kind of post softwere or plugs do you recommend me dude?.. im over OSX..
and i edit my stuff in FCP. Now im getting a new MAC (maybe INTEL, i dont know
yet, i got my doubts about first generation computers)

The other thing is that i dont have alot of time to edit, i only have like .. a week to
edit the entire footage.. we are talking about a 70 min. of final cut edit. so.. is ALOT
of work for a week... or maybe 10 days.. thats why i dont have enough time to
make some post.. affter color correction and stuff like that... maybe a little bit of glow.. but i think that i will not have enough time to do any thing else in post..
 
Thanks for the info guys. I've used Polarizer filters in the past with my Sony HDV camera (the consumer version) and my 35mm still camera. It really improved contrast and made the sky nice and blue. On the HDV camera, it also added compression noise to the image on some shots (it added noise in places in the sky that went from dark to light). I hope that the HVX200 won't do that. Any ideas? Cameras that compress don't seem to like gradient colors?

Neutral Density filters sound good. The graduated ones sound great for high contrast shots (bright sky, dark ground). Do these filters look silly when you add moving people/subjects in the foreground? Will people have dark faces and bright lower bodies (I hope that makes sense)?

It sounds like you are split when it comes to the other filters. Many of you say don't use them or you'll hurt the quality of an already challenged 1/3 camera image. Others of you say that these filters are OK and soften the image a bit which can be pleasing when shooting people. I wish I could see good examples of these filters in action. Any links where I can see these filters used on moving video?

For those of you that liked these additional filters, could you please describe what each filter does and why you like it (and which one you like the best and which one you dislike for HVX200 purposes). Sorry if this sounds like a loaded question. I'm just looking for personal opinions. The additional filters in question are:

1. Black Diffusion
2. Black Pro Mist
3. Soft Fx

NOTE:
When I had my Sony DSR500, I used a pro mist filter all the time (I'm not sure how a pro mist filter is different than a black pro mist filter). I liked how it softened the bright whites in a shot. Sometimes it would take away the overall contrast in a shot, but I generally like to bring the blacks down (a little) in post.

Keep the filter comments coming if you think of anything else.

Thanks!!!
 
The ND grads can help you with scenes with wide dynamic ranges, but you still need to use the ole' grey matter to compose the shot in a way that works. Generally if you position the grad right you can minimize its interference with the foreground. However, they're most useful for scenics with fairly even horizons, or tricky run-and-gun situations where you've got a huge light source on one side of the shot.

They're a tool that can help you stretch the possibilities a bit further, or make a workable composition look a bit prettier. They're not a fix-all to every light situation.

When I was into stills photography my favourite creative filters were a tobacco grad and an indigo grad. You can emulate the same effect by adding a colorize filter over the grad area in post. The advantage of doing it that way is that you can choose a different colour if you don't like what you've got! Plus it looks a lot more "natural" than simply adding a solid colour grad, because you've retained the detail in the highlights.

Here in the UK the motoring programmes (Especially Top Gear) absolutely love the graduated filters, and use them to great effect.
 
Yeah, Top Gear has the best cinematography I've seen on this type of show,I very much like the contrast of the colors and the use of the dolly counter-zoom when showing car hood-shots. . Do these guys use film or is it HD cameras?


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I believe they were shooting DigiBeta, but they may have upgraded to XDCAM or some flavour of HD by now.

I agree, the cinematography on Top Gear is absolutely top notch.
 
Alex Leith said:
I believe they were shooting DigiBeta, but they may have upgraded to XDCAM or some flavour of HD by now.

I agree, the cinematography on Top Gear is absolutely top notch.
Click to expand...


We don´t have TOP GEAR in Mexico.. lol...
would you gimme a webpage to watch it or some thing???

And... would you explainme (dumme way) all that things that TOP GEAR do
to achive that great cinematography pleaseeeee... (filters that i have to buy..
etc etc hahaha)

Thanks dudes
 
Well you can always watch Top Gear on the BBC World free satellite service if you have a friend with a satellite dish, though it's not the XTRA , It's only 30min but it is still worth looking at!
 
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