My new light pollution filter was a total waste of $180

Bought the Optolong L-Pro for my DSLR, thinking it would help with my backyard shots in the suburbs. After three clear nights of testing, the images just look weird and flat, like I added a blue tint and killed all contrast. Has anyone near a city actually had good luck with these things, or did I just burn cash?

3 comments

3 Comments

susan6492d ago

That's a bummer. Did you shoot in raw and try stacking the filtered shots? Those filters cut specific wavelengths, so the single frames always look strange. Needs a lot of post work to bring the data back out.

patricialee2d ago

Wait, you shoot in raw for filtered astro shots? @susan649 that's a whole other level of effort. I just assumed everyone was using jpeg for that kind of thing because the files are so huge. The idea of stacking raw files with those filters sounds like a full time job just for one picture. No wonder my single frames always look so weird and washed out, I'm missing like all the steps.

val_williams1d ago

Oh man, @susan649 is totally right about the raw files. Jpeg throws away so much of that faint data the filter lets through, you're basically starting with half a picture. Stacking raws is the only way to get a clean final image because you're adding all that weak signal together. It is a ton of work, but the difference is like night and day, you finally see all the detail you actually captured. The single filtered frames look awful on purpose, the software needs all that raw info to build a good color image later. Skipping raw with filters is like using a net with huge holes to catch tiny fish.