Quoted By:
In the Owen Kline movie Funny Pages they use a heavy diffusion filter for these scenes set in a super heated creepy basement and it sells the heat effect so well. Looks like a steamy bathroom from a hot shower haha. There’s a thin line with diffusion between augmenting the image and destroying it. I like 1/8 for the milder effects and enhancing the look of lights, backlight, hair light, softening skin in portraits. Digital mirrorless lenses are so excruciatingly sharp, so mist filters do a good job knocking some of that down. And of course pair well with film looks to sell the analog look.
I like them for personal work and more storytelling, evocative type of stuff. Straight documentary, corporate, event photos, I’m generally trying to make more of a crisp and clean, clinically accurate image so I don’t tend to use them.
Star filters also act kind of like mist filters, obviously with big star specular highlight flaring.
Fun to have and fun to use, but not 100% of the time. That said, I have one on my Ricoh GR 100% of the time.
