Magic filters?

[Cacia]

Not sure what I am talking about, but I liked the effect in the cavern, similiar to Blue Holes.

 

[Jamdiver]

Yes Mike sort of true....

But.... adding the filter helps out quite a bit especially below 10 feet. if you don't add that red back in you are really pushing the limits of the camera and you will find the resulting image really starts to degrade and gains lots of noise. By adding the filter you help the camera out and retain image quality.

Mike do you think the 'underwater action' in Photoshop can replicate the effects of the magic filter?

I'm speaking about an underwater action that I downloaded in photoshop that adds red and great of the blue/cyan cast common in many shots that use auto white balance..

 

[RonFrank]

MIke, hope you can teach me to do that! I have one but have never whipped it out for the reasons you stated. I am blown away that you can use it with a strobe.

Is Alex a physicist? I cannot remember, but I got the feeling something inspired him on this product. have you been able to figure out what it's unique properties are?

If you read the pdf article I attached, what Mike has basically done is come up with a filter that is a mix of red/orange. A Wratten #25 red will completely block blue and green light transmissions while enhancing blue. Orange does a similar thing to a lesser extent.

Alex came up with a number of colors between pink, orange, and red and combinations including all three, and then did trial and error testing until he found a combination that seemed to work best at different depths.

Interesting to note, when he started out on this quest he found that the UR Pro CY was a damn good filter, but it was not available in a gel. At the time he was doing this research most WA lenses used a rear drop gel filter, however that has changed in a lot of WA optics. The Nikon 12-24 DX for example uses a standard screw mount 77mm filter, so it would be interesting to see someone actually compare these filters side by side as IMO a glass or resin filter would be a better solution which is what the UR pro filters are.

 

[Mike Veitch]

Mike do you think the 'underwater action' in Photoshop can replicate the effects of the magic filter?

I'm speaking about an underwater action that I downloaded in photoshop that adds red and great of the blue/cyan cast common in many shots that use auto white balance..

No, i also have that red PS thingy... i don't find it works well. On some shots it does but i haven't found it useful.

Do you have Manual WB Jam? i think you are better off using the manual WB without filter than trying to do that red thingy in PS after...

 

[Jamdiver]

I do have manual WB Mike, but honestly I don't think i've found the right material that is truly 'white' for setting white balance, so far the best thing that i've found is a bit of styrofoam from take out Chinese food..

 

[Cacia]

Ron, so you think the only advantage is the price because it is gel? The glass one would only be thirty dollars more, no? I have the optical glass screw on things just to protect the lenses.

 

[Mike Veitch]

I do have manual WB Mike, but honestly I don't think i've found the right material that is truly 'white' for setting white balance, so far the best thing that i've found is a bit of styrofoam from take out Chinese food..

try WB on the thing you are taking a pic of...

Just imagine you are taking two pics one after the other.

Or you can try a regular dive slate

 

[RonFrank]

Ron, so you think the only advantage is the price because it is gel? The glass one would only be thirty dollars more, no? I have the optical glass screw on things just to protect the lenses.

I honestly don't know as I've not tried out the two filters in similar conditions (or better yet the exact same conditions). If you don't have a rear drop in gel filter area, but do have a screw mount on the front of the lens, a glass filter, or high quality resin filter is optically a better solution. Think about it, high quality multi coated optically ground glass vs. a hunk of plastic.

Drop in filters were designed for one reason alone, and that is because the front lens element is either too large (like in the case of something like a 400f2.8) or the glass is curved in such a way that it extends beyond the front of the lens -or- placing anything in front of the lens results in vignetting. That brings up a point, the 12-24mm MIGHT need a slim filter to prevent vignetting. However even if some occured, it would be only at the widest settings, and it would be slight and easily cropped.

Alex has obviously tried both of these combinations, however I'd suggest his opinion is a bit biased

Another thing to consider is that one can go a long way towards adding more red, and subtracting green and blue from an UW image. Most of my images in my gallary that were shot with available light started out very blue and monochromish. A quick adjust in the channels, and boom the red is back the colors become more neuteral.

Next time I get the opportunity to shoot in good condtions UW (which will be in the upcoming months) I'll take down a wratter 25 filter, and do a few shots with it to see if they process better with PS vs. just shooting straight up without a flash.

 

[RonFrank]

I do have manual WB Mike, but honestly I don't think i've found the right material that is truly 'white' for setting white balance, so far the best thing that i've found is a bit of styrofoam from take out Chinese food..

Many photographers use a slate. I think that is what Stephen Frink said he used, but I can not remember.

Custom WB basically tells the camera what you are shooting is white, and adjust the color temperture so that the object that fills the frame records as the white point.

I used sand for a lot of my shots, and it worked well. This is a huge advantage of shooting RAW as you have a lot of lattitude in easily adjusting the WB in CS/PS after the fact. The objective is to still shoot the best shot possible in camera, but I've found that unlike topside shooting where I often need little if any adjustment to WB or any setting for that matter with images out of the camera, every UW image I've done benifits from adjusting both the WB, and the channels.

 

[Ryan]

I've read quite a lot of misinformation here, reaffirming that there should be some law somewhere that people actually use something before they comment on it...

The Magic Filter is not simply a Color Compensating or Color Conversion Filter like a URPro or Kodak Wratten Gel. There is a white balance conversion that allows you to get a broader tonality and color range out of your digital camera than either of those two options can offer.

Based on the way that I take pictures, I have little or no use for a magic filters. There are some big animal opportunites I plan to use it on, but for my normal underwater photography I'm a color backed strobes guy.

There are some excellent examples on the site of what the filter can do in high visibility and high ambient light situations.