Sorry, Polar Pro guys ...

Dobmatt · Nov 5, 2016

Watching my footage after first summer season with Inspire 1 Pro I was under impression that something is not right with color temperature. The issue is fixable in post production, but only to a degree. I'm shooting in manual mode and with non-auto WB settings tailored for particular lighting conditions. Yet on calibrated Mac Retina everything looks tinted with yellow-ish and sometimes purple-ish haze. The obvious suspects are ND and PL filters, a must in this business, in this case basic 3-piece set of Polar Pro glasses and some other cheap Chinese crap.

The suspects were innocent until proved guilty ... I've ordered a pair of filters made by respected German brand B&W and did a comparison. The verdict? Indeed, Polar Pro filters are introducing strong warm coloration into images, where B&W filters are on definitely more neutral side. The truth is any reasonably priced ND or PL filter will inject some coloration, either warming or cooling the output image. Polar Pro filters are doing just that, but brutally.

Here's how I did the comparison. The X5 camera was shooting a series of bracketed images, targeting neutral gray piece of paper under cloudy sky. With WB set to 5600K the camera was on all the time. Changing filters, adjusting aperture and shooting the entire sequence took 10 minutes.

The compilation revealed obvious tendency of Polar Pro filters to warm the image, with surprising cooling properties of ND16 filter (I've never used this filter). For change B&W filters are cooling the image, but very subtly. Additional "charges" are laid to Promaster Variable ND filter, used on my Oly 45mm lens with horrible magenta tint results.

There's a minor problem with camera balancing since most of good quality filters are heavier, as being developed for handheld cameras. However, in W&B filters case the additional gimbal abuse is negligent. Needless to say my credit card is abused much more, again ...

huppe · Nov 6, 2016

Thanks Dobmatt.
I wasn't happy with my filters also.
I will have a check on the W&B filters.

Dobmatt · Nov 6, 2016

huppe said:
Thanks Dobmatt.
I wasn't happy with my filters also.
I will have a check on the W&B filters.

B+W 46mm MRC 103M Solid Neutral Density 0.9 Filter 66-1069135

huppe · Nov 6, 2016

Dobmatt said:
B+W 46mm MRC 103M Solid Neutral Density 0.9 Filter 66-1069135

Thanks

RaptorMan · Nov 6, 2016

Dobmatt said:
B+W 46mm MRC 103M Solid Neutral Density 0.9 Filter 66-1069135

Do you have a weight for the filter? If the ring is brass my guess is in the 20+ grams range whereas with an aluminum ring more like 10-13 grams.

When I ordered filters for my I1 Pro back in January I ordered I got an ND2, ND4 and ND8 from Hoya and for the ND16 I got a Tiffen -- the Hoya's were all 11g while the Tiffen was 13g. I can't say that I've seen the kind of color shift you're seeing with the Polar Pro, but then I'm not using the Polar Pro either...

Brian

Dobmatt · Nov 9, 2016

RaptorMan said:
Do you have a weight for the filter? If the ring is brass my guess is in the 20+ grams range whereas with an aluminum ring more like 10-13 grams.

When I ordered filters for my I1 Pro back in January I ordered I got an ND2, ND4 and ND8 from Hoya and for the ND16 I got a Tiffen -- the Hoya's were all 11g while the Tiffen was 13g. I can't say that I've seen the kind of color shift you're seeing with the Polar Pro, but then I'm not using the Polar Pro either...

Brian

Sorry for delayed response ... ND filter weights 18.3 G, polarizing filter a whooping 28.9 G, but I'm willing to live with this.

Matthew.

Nils Blix · Nov 10, 2016

I have B&W, Heliopan and Firecrest ND filters - all of them are high end filters - but the best is Firecrest.

RaptorMan · Nov 10, 2016

I've been pleased with the Hoya and Tiffen filters and at 11g to 13g they're heavy enough to provide balancing but not so heavy as to make the camera very front heavy. I usually use the 3 or 4 stop ND and the UV when the light is too low.

Brian

rmb · Nov 12, 2016

Dobmatt said:
surprising cooling properties of ND16 filter (I've never used this filter).
...

Thank you for this. I have had a very hard time (especially with the ND 16) correcting this even in DaVinci. and thought it must be me as I have never heard anyone mention it much less do an extensive text. Unlike you I am only shooting with the x3 so I have even less latitude in post. I even spent the extra cash on their cinema series ND filers and bought a color card and I still find the damage to be difficult to totally repair. Unfortunately I don't believe there are any quality ND filters out there for the x3. That said if anyone knows of any, please chime in.

Dobmatt · Nov 12, 2016

rmb said:
Thank you for this. I have had a very hard time (especially with the ND 16) correcting this even in DaVinci. and thought it must be me as I have never heard anyone mention it much less do an extensive text. Unlike you I am only shooting with the x3 so I have even less latitude in post. I even spent the extra cash on their cinema series ND filers and bought a color card and I still find the damage to be difficult to totally repair. Unfortunately I don't believe there are any quality ND filters out there for the x3. That said if anyone knows of any, please chime in.

I don't know what is the thread size for X3 lens, but - no matter what - the best place to look for filters will be B&H online store. Again, I don't know the capacity of X3 gimbal and how it'll handle heavier filters on front, causing the camera to roll nose down.

GordieSea · Nov 12, 2016

As a professional photographer for the past 40+ years I have found that the programmed settings of the camera is much smarter than all of us trying to manually correct color with a series of filters. You can still correct obvious color mistakes by the camera in post production, but overall, the camera, set on program or auto will make the best decisions, especially in white balance.

Dobmatt · Nov 12, 2016

GordieSea said:
As a professional photographer for the past 40+ years I have found that the programmed settings of the camera is much smarter than all of us trying to manually correct color with a series of filters. You can still correct obvious color mistakes by the camera in post production, but overall, the camera, set on program or auto will make the best decisions, especially in white balance.

Correct, but this issue is not related to the topic. We're not trying to alter the temperature of the image or correct white balance settings. Instead we must limit the amount - and only the amount - of light being received by the camera sensor. Nothing else.

GordieSea · Nov 13, 2016

Sorry, Polar Pro guys. I should not have jumped into a discussion without being aware of the main topic. Will read all of the threads from now on before commenting.

The Editor · Nov 13, 2016

GordieSea said:
As a professional photographer for the past 40+ years I have found that the programmed settings of the camera is much smarter than all of us trying to manually correct color with a series of filters. You can still correct obvious color mistakes by the camera in post production, but overall, the camera, set on program or auto will make the best decisions, especially in white balance.

I'm afraid this is only true for photography and not video.
A tracking auto white balance is a nightmare to correct in post since every frame potentially needs to be keyframed to take into account the tracking speed of the WB which will change depending on scene.
Sorry @Dobmatt - OT.

RaptorMan · Nov 14, 2016

The Editor said:
I'm afraid this is only true for photography and not video.
A tracking auto white balance is a nightmare to correct in post since every frame potentially needs to be keyframed to take into account the tracking speed of the WB which will change depending on scene.
Sorry @Dobmatt - OT.

Need to second this. For still photography you can use AWB pretty much 100% of the time and correct in PS. But, with video, the imagery isn't frozen in time as video can last minutes or even hours at a time. Just changing the direction a drone is pointing can significantly effect the white balance.

Brian

Dobmatt · Nov 15, 2016

RaptorMan said:
Need to second this. For still photography you can use AWB pretty much 100% of the time and correct in PS. But, with video, the imagery isn't frozen in time as video can last minutes or even hours at a time. Just changing the direction a drone is pointing can significantly effect the white balance.

Brian

Agree, Brother Brian, but ... again, we're shifting away from the topic of this thread ...

William Gaddy · Nov 16, 2016

Anybody here have any experience with the HXY TEK filter set for the X5?

Cheers

Dobmatt · Nov 17, 2016

William Gaddy said:
Anybody here have any experience with the HXY TEK filter set for the X5?

Cheers

Even Google don't know what it is

...

William Gaddy · Nov 17, 2016

Meh... that's not a good sign! See here (the weights looks nominal, anyway):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MAUBWSR/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=AHUAMGSJZ6QK0

Cheers

Dobmatt · Nov 17, 2016

William Gaddy said:
Meh... that's not a good sign! See here (the weights looks nominal, anyway):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MAUBWSR/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=AHUAMGSJZ6QK0

Cheers

William, a have no experience with these, but every fiber in my body is screaming "stay away from this cheap Chinese crap!!!" .

Matthew.