Tiffen 77GG1 77mm Glimmer Glass 1 Filter

Product Information

Feeling is what matters, more than technical perfection. Sometimes ultra-sharpness contributes to that feeling. Sometimes a softness in the image contributes to that feeling. That’s where the Glimmerglass filter comes in. This filter, made by Tiffen, is one of a number of diffusion filters that do not simply “fuzz” the image but do something far more interesting. I bought one in a size to fit the new fast Fuji 50mm f/1.0 and thought it might be worthwhile to shoot this lens, which already has a sort of diffusion look built-in when shot at f/1.0, and to see what the combination would produce. I will try to demonstrate some of those digital effects here sometime in the not too far future. Let‘s see how it turns out. It’s a diffusion filter, it goes on the front of the lens. You put it on your super-sharp, modern lens and you make pictures. What’s left? I own a Tiffen 49mm Circular Polarizer that I rarely use. I probably should use it more, because CPLs are great for reducing unwanted reflections. To some extent, it’s theoretically possible to mimic Color Chrome FX Blue with a CPL filter, I think, although I’ve never tried. I also have a Hoya Intensifier (a.k.a. Didymium filter or Starscape filter) that I’ve used a few times. I have some 49mm color filters for B&W film photography, but obviously those don’t work well on the X100V (I tried). I also have a Hoya 80A filter, which actually does work on the X100V, but I pretty much never use it. The Glimmerglass series of filters also has a benefit of sparkling when viewed, which can add reassurance to your talent when shooting beauty; that way you can fully concentrate on the look of your shot."

Sometimes the result is similar to what the Orton effect is achieving, the major difference is, that the Orton effect affects bright and dark parts of the frame alike, whereas the diffusion filters emphasize the brighter parts. I don’t know how the digital Otron effect is implemented in different software solutions, but one way to make it effective only in/around bright areas of the image is to make a copy of the image, overexpose it, blur it, and take a B/W copy of the blurred image as the alpha-channel for blending with the original image. Strength and sensitivity of the effect may then be varied by applying changes to the B/W copy in the alpha-channel. In the filmmaking world you don’t have that same pressure to find the ultimate in sharpness. A moving image is extraordinarily forgiving of what would be unthinkable in still photography. A little unsharpness passes without comment in a movie while the still frame from that image would be cast to the darkroom floor. In the film days it was not uncommon for focus in a motion picture to be off a bit now and then (it’s still not as rare as you might expect). Even big-budget films went to print with misfocused scenes. Taking pictures in the dark with point light sources in the frame the effect is also similar to what you get when shooting analogue Cinestill 800T film.Moment Cinebloom 10% is the most extreme filter, it gives the most bloom and the removes the most contrast from hightlights and shadows. Could the lower contrast be useful if you are shooting in high dynamic range situations, I think so. Cinebloom was made to be cheaper but all of the filters seem to sold out from time to time, and I think it’s pushing up prices. None of them are cheap 🙂 ColorCore® Technology (per < link > The Tiffen ColorCore technology is a secret proprietary formula...) Not sharp” is not a neutral statement identifying a characteristic of a lens. It is a judgment of that lens, a dismissal of that lens. But followers have to, by definition, be following and that implies that somebody is out there in front. With diffusion filters that is certainly not me—adapting old lenses to modern cameras is a well-established corner of the photo world and diffusion fits into that same corner as well, although even there it’s sort of a niche, a corner within a corner. Perhaps we can add a bit to that little group—put the Glimmerglass on the fast Fuji 50 and see what happens?

And sharp they are. Lenses are judged now by enlarging an image on a screen to 100%—image pixel per screen pixel—at a size and a viewing distance few images are ever seen at—and the best lenses pass the test, exhibiting a crystal clear resolution that can bring childish mirth to your face. It’s fun, in a way, to see that little detail in the photo now clearly visible after tapping the zoom-in button. It makes you want to zoom in on every image, test every lens to see how sharp it is under maximum magnification. When a light source is overexposed it blooms—it spreads out over the adjacent parts of the image. The diffusion filter strengthens that spreading and here you can see the Moon has bloomed out to many times its original size. In this particular case I find this extreme blooming undesirable although no doubt good use could be made of this effect. Note in the Glimmerglass photo the ball of greenish light—lens flare from the surface of the filter. The flare is not evenly toned—more on that later. One is not better than the other, one desirable, the other not. They are just different possibilities. People say that Glimmer Glass gives the most sharpness, I can’t really tell myself. The two Tiffen filters seem equally sharp, Cinebloom maybe a bit less sharp (maybe).I think it’s a bit of the same situation here. Sure, one can get very respectable to good results from really bad lenses if talented — I’m looking at you, Bastian! More Samples Sony A7III | 28mm | Tiffen Glimmerglass1 Sony A7III | 28mm | Tiffen Glimmerglass1 Sony A7III | 28mm | Tiffen Glimmerglass1 Sony A7III | Laowa 35mm 0.95 | f/0.95 | K&F Diffusion 1/2 Sony A7III | Laowa 35mm 0.95 | f/0.95 | K&F Diffusion 1/2 Sony A7III | Laowa 35mm 0.95 | f/0.95 | K&F Diffusion 1/2 Sony A7III | Laowa 35mm 0.95 | f/2.8 | K&F Diffusion 1/2 Sony A7III | Laowa 35mm 0.95 | f/0.95 | K&F Diffusion 1/2 Further Reading

For astrophotography the better way to highlight brighter stars in images may be the use of some of the quite good Samyang lenses which are known to show slightly undercorrected spherical aberration leading to a similar effect while maintaining comparably high contrast and resolution in the whole frame. The quality and taste of the whole dish are limited by the worst ingredients. For that reason I would never use a wine for cooking that I would not dare to drink pure. NiSi recently released a so called “Star Soft” filter which I might give a try in the future — maybe later this fall with less hot nights with less atmospheric turbulences impacting the image quality. In that case the brighter stars should seem more pronounced (as seen with the naked eye), but smaller stars may no longer be visible probably leading to an image with less details. To maintain a high resolution and contrast in the foreground this filter is split in two areas. So one can chose where this effect should be applied. I’m curious how the results will turn out. Earlier we saw flare from the filter and here it is again, though brighter and clearer. And again we see that it is not even—is there something in the flare? And there is—a picture of the Moon. With greatly reduced exposure the details of its surface are clear, the focused light having bounced off the flat filter in some way. There’s a coolness factor here that cannot be denied. Tiffen is indeed a lot better at what it does. No wonder they are quite known in movie scenes. I do have Glimmerglass 2 and it does effect only highlights as well, while retaining sharpness and contrast over all other image parts. The effect is a bit stronger than the glimmer glass 1 that you used.Notice how the direct light affects diffusion filters a lot, especially Cinebloom that completely spreads out the highlights over a big area. Test #2 – Ingolfs Kaffebar If you hold it and shift it around so the light reflects off the glass, the surface of a Glimmerglass filter looks like it has been sprinkled with some sort of metallic dust, maybe gold. The particles aren’t really on the surface, they are sandwiched between two thin layers of glass, and they probably aren’t gold, though for the price of the filter I’m thinking maybe they should be. This whale was moving in a circle, too, in shallow water, apparently both corralling the fish and then coming up on them to eat them. I saw him lunge out of the water but neglected to take a picture. It is also unusual to see whales active and feeding like this after sunset—normally about a half-hour prior to sunset the whales tend to wrap things up and head to wherever it is they go at night. But there was a lot of fish in the water, witnessed by the many birds on the surface and the dive-bombing Pelicans crashing into and under the swells, and so that may explain the late activity, though I worry that this whale may be here now more out of weakness and hunger than out of choice. All the photos are shot with the Fujifilm X-T3 + Fujifilm XF 35mm f2.0 R WR on a tripod. Test #1 – Statue at Vestre Cemetery

thanks for this nice short review. I don’t like the idea of worsening the optical qualities of a good lens either. But indeed, the achievable looks may be quite nice. I think I’ll give some NiSi filters a try as well. I’ve been asked a few times recently what adapter and filters I use on my Fujifilm X100V. I will state right off the bat that my choices aren’t necessarily the “best” ones, it’s just what I’ve done. There are likely better options, and perhaps different choices that would be better for you, so keep that in mind. With that said, let me get right into the adapter and filters that I use on my Fujifilm X100V.All of these filters seem to contain a higher density of very small implanted particles/defects. Those lead to a mixture of diffractive and scattering effects in the path of the light travelling through the optical system. Without going too much into detail most of those effects will lead to blurred light sources where the blurring might be well approximated by the superposition of some gaussian blurs with a filter specific distribution of different radii (it‘s not exactly gaussian, but close enough to keep that simple model — which is also implemented in most photographic/image manipulating software). Hence, yes, theoretically one should be able to recreate these effects quite easily with some work. For the displayed use cases (e.g. in the city) those filters reviewed here may be the smarter choice than a undercorrected lens or software based solutions as the results seem to be nicer. Tiffen Glimmer Glass 1 is the least extreme filter, it gives a small amount of bloom and pulls down highlight contrast slightly, but shadows seems to be the same. Good for all around subjects like portraits where you don’t want a too extreme look, but still want to soften those strong highlights. The effect of the Glimmerglass filter shows most obviously in the sun-bright portion at the top edge of the image where the white sun suddenly blooms, the white glow spreading out over the leaves and the tree trunk. There is a lowering of contrast—the Glimmerglass image might initially look dull in comparison. I’m not sure if there is a loss if resolution or not—higher contrast can give the illusion of sharpness and lowered contrast thus seems less sharp.