Just dropped $200 on a proper light pollution filter and it's a total game changer for my shots

I live just outside a city and my photos were always washed out with this gross orange glow. I tried editing it out for months with no luck. The filter cost me about two hundred bucks and it clips right onto my camera lens. The difference is night and day, literally. My shots of the Orion Nebula last week actually show color and detail now instead of looking like a fuzzy orange blob. Has anyone else tried one of these? I'm curious if there are cheaper options that work just as well.

4 comments

4 Comments

wendyprice2mo ago

Glad it worked, same as @river_allen.

river_allen2mo ago

Oh man, that's awesome to hear! I had the exact same problem with that awful orange haze ruining my shots. Biting the bullet on a filter was the best choice I ever made for my astro photos. It felt like a magic trick seeing the real colors come through for the first time. Totally worth every penny to finally get the results you're after.

willowh202mo ago

Honestly, filters can be a band-aid. It's cool they worked for you and @hugo_robinson25, but stacking more exposures has always given me cleaner results. That filter just kills a chunk of the data, so you lose some of the faint stuff while cutting the glow. I'd rather drive twenty minutes to a darker spot and keep all the light from my target. My last shot of the Horsehead Nebula turned out way better from a Bortle 4 zone than any filtered shot from my backyard.

hugo_robinson252mo ago

Ugh, the orange glow is the worst. My early attempts at Andromeda just looked like a weird smudge in a soup of city light. I was ready to give up until I tried a filter too. Seeing actual dust lanes instead of that gross haze was such a relief. It makes the whole hobby fun again when you can actually see what you're shooting.

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