Tiffen Soft Fx 1

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Lalo Scalf

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Aug 3, 2024, 4:52:24 PM8/3/24

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The Tiffen Soft/FX Filter can be applied to purposely reduce the appearance of blemishes and wrinkles in portraits or to apply a general soft-focus effect while maintaining overall sharpness. An array of small lenses distributed within the surface of this filter smooths fine lines and textures, which can be useful for creating a more flattering result of a subject.

Grades of 1/2, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are also available where this filter type's effect becomes approximately twice as strong with each grade number increase. When higher grade numbers are applied, a halation effect around highlights can be created to further enhance a subject's appearance or produce a desired effect.

This filter is constructed from optical glass for clarity as well as color fidelity. It is made using ColorCore technology, a process that involves laminating the filter substrate between two pieces of optical glass and grinding flat to a tolerance of 1/10,000th of an inch, and then mounting to precision metal rings.

The Tiffen 4 x 5.65" Soft Edge Graduated ND Filter (Horizontal Orientation) is a graduated neutral density filter that helps to specifically darken skies and other bright areas of the image. The filter is densest at the edge and tapers to clear by the middle, with a soft-edged line of transition between the density and clear areas. Neutral density filters do not affect the coloration of the image and the density provides reduction in light from entering the lens.

This filter is made using ColorCore technology, a process that involves laminating the filter substrate between 2 pieces of optical glass and grinding flat to a tolerance of 1/10,000th of an inch. This filter measures 4 x 5.65" / 101.6 x 143.5mm.

The Tiffen Soft/FX 3 Digital HT Filter diffuses strong light entering the lens and produces a glowing effect. While the resulting image appears softer and ethereal, there is little loss of clarity or detail. This filter works by diffusing the light entering the lens with small aberrations; by spreading the light more evenly, a soft glow is created rather than the sharp, well-defined image when shooting without a filter. This filter has a 3 density, providing a moderate amount of softening.

The Digital HT coating is a high transmission multi-coating that surpasses military specifications for hardness and durability. This optical purity combined with high scratch-resistance results in an easy-to-clean filter with superb imaging quality. They also feature low-profile titanium filter rings for increased strength and vignetting reduction.

Shooting some SD video next week, and I want to take the edge off the image. I asked for a set of Classic Soft filters, but the rental house has Soft F/X, or black Pro-Mists instead. Are the Classic Softs and Soft FXs just two companies' versions of the same thing? (The Tiffen website isn't much help.) I'm not trying to get any neat patterns from the practicals, just trying to mush up the background.

Despite my severe annoyance ( :D ), I'll attempt to address your question. I assume you're referring to Tiffen soft/fx filters, which do impart a nice look to video. I'd recommend trying the #1 first. However, your reference to "mushing up" the background implies that you're looking for a sharp foreground with a shallow depth of field, which will likely be best established with camera placement close to your object of focus, while manually focusing on that object. If you then want to soften up the object of focus, you can try the soft filter.

But using slight diffusion filters on video is usually a good idea. The Black promist is the one I have used the most. It's affect is more apparent on hotter highlights than the rest of the image. Be careful with very wide lenses/adaptors, sometimes it is possible to get the actual texture of the filter in focus! it looks like a bunch of static black grain (not good!). I have used all the filters you described, they all have slightly different effects: The classic soft is almost like a old fashioned fog filter and is nice and glamorous, but can give you a milky image on the stronger increments (2 or above). The Soft FX is my least favourite of the three, I used it only in a test and didn't like it, it seemd to give everything an almost out of focus look. Another similar filter that I really liked is the Diffusion FX series (Tiffen I think) they come in Black and Gold, they are a bit similar to pro-mists but when I tested them side-by-side on 35mm the diffussion FX was less milky and gave a sharper image that still had a nice softness/glow in the highlights.

Yeah, I've learned to stay long w/ video, but I still want to fake some more shallowness of field. I've always used 1/8, or 1/4 BPM's, but I'm kind of bored w/ that method. Fortunately, Tamberelli Digital is being very helpful, so a test will be easy enough to arrange.

Both Soft-FX and Classic Soft use a similar technique of "lenslets" to throw an out-of-focus image over an in-focus image (the clear areas of the filter.) The advantage of the Soft-FX design is that the pattern is irregular and so are the shapes of the lenslets, so there is less chance of the pattern coming into focus compared to Classic Softs, which have a grid pattern with larger lenslets, so the extra depth of field of video can sometimes cause the pattern to start to be obvious. Otherwise, they do similar things, with the Soft-FX creating more of an irregular fuzzy glow while the Classic Soft creating more of a double fuzzy edge. The Classic Soft also can create the effect of an out-of-focus "bubble" to appear around points of light.

The Tiffen Diffusion-FX was designed to eliminate the optical artifacts of diffusion like halation and the resulting loss of contrast; it sort of uses a pattern of kidney-shaped indents in the surface. Only problem for me is that I LIKE the artifacts of diffusion, so Diffusion-FX is a little boring to me. But if you simply want softening with no artifacts, then this is the best diffusion filter.

It's not the same. Tiffen currently lists gold diffusion and black diffusion. No plain old diffusion. My guess is that it would look something like a white pro-mist. You can call tiffen and ask. They're a very approachable company.

Basically a diffusion filter works on the principal of throwing small areas of the image out of focus while allowing sharp areas to pass through unaffected, thus overlaying an out of focus image over a sharp image (as opposed to just blurring the entire image, which is basically just an out of focus image.)

Now this is similar to how a "mist" or fog/low con filter works, which has some sort of mist particle suspended over the filter that causes light to spread, and also somewhat softens the image (some more than others.) It's just that with diffusion filters, instead of a light scattering particle, you have an optical indentation or something to cause that area to become defocused.

The trouble is that in some ways, this pattern of indents or bubbles or "lenslets" also act to scatter light and thus also produce some of the effect of a mist filter -- halation around lights plus lowering of contrast.

Ira Tiffen worked on creating a diffusion filter that would merely reduce fine detail without much other visible artifacts, i.e. minimal to no halation, no loss of contrast, just softening. At the time, two common glass diffusers on the market were the Tiffen Soft-FX, the older Harrison Diffusion, and the older Mitchell Diffusion. I think Ira may have also designed the Soft-FX. There was also the Harrision Black Dot Texture Screens at the time.

Anyway, the Harrison Diffusion (seen to good effect in the early scenes of "Malcolm X") has a particularly foggy look. The Mitchells do not. And both the Harrison Diffusion and the Mitchell tends to throw too much of the image out of focus, there is a feeling that nothing is quite in focus.

The Mitchells have a sort of trapezoid pattern indented into the glass, and Ira told me that he felt that the straight edges of the pattern were part of the cause of the blurriness issue. But that pattern is probably also why Mitchells don't create a misty look.