For some time now, I’ve been interested in the center spot filters for the diffused focus effect but I worried about how the distortion from the edges of the center hole would look. So to solve this uncertainty before I ever committed to buying such a filter, I did some googling1 and discovered this old page showing the different results of various filters. It made me decide not to get the center spot filter with the hole in the glass I had been looking at on eBay.
Then I dug a bit more through the site and found the list of other useful bits2. I’m very grateful for Professor Shene’s deep interest in photography all those years ago and the time taken to document so much information. I clicked on the “Diffusion Filters” page and saw a lovely photo with a warm glow. It was the Cokin Sunsoft filter and I went down a deep rabbit hole of looking up what this was and then found the concept so fun I continued my eBay dive and bought a bunch of filters along with 49mm and 55mm adapters to fit my lenses. It was hard to just get the Sunsoft; I had to get a few more of the interesting effects for novelty.
Since Professor Shene’s page on Center Spot filters showed some of the other variants, I got the 060 and 061 of the Cokin versions, Pastel 1 (086), Pastel 2 (087), Fog 2 (151), and the Sunsoft (694) filter that started this entire journey as well as some others that came with the used sets bundled together. B&H Photo’s Cokin guide introduced me to the idea of the Pastel and Fog filters, which sent me on a second spiral after initially getting the Sunsoft, Center Spot, and few other diffusion filters. I would love to also get my hands on a Prism (219) filter one day.
While the Cokin filter system is definitely a lot of fun, they’re not as easy to swap on and off as regular screw-on filters. I only took some test shots in my room, but I’d like to try taking this out on a stroll. I just can’t do it in a crowded area because I don’t to obstruct anyone while swapping filters.
Here are some shots3 of the various diffusion filters:
I like the dreamy effect of the Paste 2 a lot. It’s not for many situations, but for specific shots it could be really interesting, especially outdoors.
Here is the same scene in regular view, Pastel 1, Pastel 2, and Fog 2:
The Fog 2 isn’t too appropriate for this view, but while the photo below is better at showing the atmosphere, I need to go outdoors to take a wider angle scene to best utilize the effect.
Footnotes
- I don’t actually use Google anymore as my main search, but this term is here to stay lol. I moved to DDG first, and then to Startpage. ↩︎
- Clicking on any of the camera guides will give you a list of useful pages, but the Nikon Coolpix 950, 990, 995, and 4500 pages had the list of filters I enjoyed browsing. The 995 page is my favorite to reference. ↩︎
- If the Exif data doesn’t say 20mm for the length, it’s taken with one of my Minolta 50mm lenses. ↩︎
