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 Who needs a smoke machine…or software when a screw-on filter can create the effect? Tiffen’s Smoque filters run in four gradations. A is without filtration, B with a Smoque 4.
Who says the magic of image-editing software means you don’t need filters when shooting? Not Hollywood, where the electronic special effects make Adobe Photoshop CS look like an old game of Pac-Man.
“There’s not a foot of motion picture film shot that doesn’t have a filter on the lens,” says Steve Tiffen.
Granted, Steve has a vested interest in promoting filters—he heads the operation started by his father Nat in 1938. Today, The Tiffen Co. (www.tiffen.com; 800-645-2522) is a top brand in photographic filters and the leading supplier of filters to Hollywood.
“In movies, the cinematographer has 30 to 40 filters on hand to help control light and solve problems,” says Steve.
Problems like wrinkles and imperfections in famous faces. Among the 2,000 different sizes, types, and gradations of filters in the Tiffen arsenal, warming and diffusion filters are Hollywood essentials. In fact, a display case in Tiffen’s Hauppauge, New York, headquarters holds 4x6.5-inch Panavision-size filters signed by stars such as Barbra Streisand (“Nice!”) and Tom Hanks (“Looking good!”).
Like Hollywood, film shooters have long understood the value of filters. (Who doesn’t have red, yellow, and green filters for black-and-white work, and at least a polarizer for popping up skies?) Now digital shooters are joining the filter fold in a big way.
There are many reasons. For one, nothing polarizes like a polarizing filter. Want to get glare off glass or water? A polarizer does it, and lets you see behind the reflections. At best, software only makes it look that way.
Another draw for digital photographers is that you can see the filter’s effect immediately on the LCD. You know what works and what doesn’t. Experimentation is fast, easy, and cheap—no lab processing required.
And even if software can give you the effect you’re looking for, why not do it with a filter and save yourself time in front of the computer? Or, as Steve Tiffen says, “You can get it right the first time.”
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