Fixing the colour cast on a 10 stop filter

[LandR]

I recently got a Tiffen 10 stop filter, I expected some colour cast on the images but not this much! (Even though Tiffen do say "This filter reduces the amount of light passing through the camera lens by approximately 10 stops without changing the color of the scene").

How do I even begin to correct this in Lightroom ?

Here's a test shot from today to show what I'm talking about, ignore the terrible photo, I just wanted to see what the filter produced. THis was 1/2 second at f/10



Almost entirely red.

Link to RAW file

[markmullen]

That is quite extreme.

A quick way at this stage is to use the white balance picker on something neutral, the lighthouse for example, or a foreground rock.

If it's that bad it'll be worth shooting a custom white balance to store in your camera for future use.

[RobDickinson]

Problem with that is its mostly red, theres very little in any of the other 2 colour channels!

[RobDickinson]

If you can return that filter do so, thats terrible, here is the best I can do

[MartinP]

Surely they've sent you the wrong filter? An ND filter really shouldn't give an image with basically only the red channel left.

[steveatesh]

Bloody hell, I'm looking at 10 stops at the moment and Tiffen is definitely off my list after seeing that!
Favouring the formatt hitech at the moment.

[RobDickinson]

MartinP said:

Surely they've sent you the wrong filter? An ND filter really shouldn't give an image with basically only the red channel left.

I would suspect this is right, that water looks like it has way too much movement in, even a bright day shot should be 20-30 seconds.

[Gemm]

RobDickinson said:

I would suspect this is right, that water looks like it has way too much movement in, even a bright day shot should be 20-30 seconds.

Yes, I would have thought it would be very difficult to achieve 1/2 sec with f10 with a 10-stop ND. Anyway, I ALWAYS use custom WB when I'm using this type of filter.

Edited by Gemm on Monday 2nd December 08:23

[LandR]

I called Tiffen and explained the situation. They want me to send them some JPEGs of the exposures so they can look at them. The guy I spoke to said I was the second Nikon person they have spoken to recently and the other guy had the same issue. He thinks that the D70 doesn't have anything in front of the sensor to block IR or near IR. So the filter is causing the images to become really red.

They are also sending me a filter he says is called a T1 to test and see if that fixes the issue.

They were really helpful on the phone. So I'll see what happens.

I'm still surprised I was able to get a sub 1 second exposure though on a supposed 10 stop filter... even in the middle of the day. I held the filter up to a bright light and it does look red...

[Simpo Two]

LandR said:

The guy I spoke to said I was the second Nikon person they have spoken to recently and the other guy had the same issue. He thinks that the D70 doesn't have anything in front of the sensor to block IR or near IR. So the filter is causing the images to become really red.

He may be mis-remembering this: http://www.lifepixel.com/tutorials/infrared-diy-tu...


I've used an ND4 on a D70 and the photos were normally coloured.

Edited by Simpo Two on Monday 2nd December 13:09

[Janesy B]

It's the wrong filter.

[MartinP]

LandR said:

I'm still surprised I was able to get a sub 1 second exposure though on a supposed 10 stop filter... even in the middle of the day

What ISO was the camera set to? With the exposure settings you had, if it really was a 10 stop filter then you'd need to have been up at around 6,400 or more to avoid being underexposed...

[LandR]

MartinP said:

What ISO was the camera set to? With the exposure settings you had, if it really was a 10 stop filter then you'd need to have been up at around 6,400 or more to avoid being underexposed...

200

[Gemm]

LandR said:

200

I just did a quick test and ISO 200 and f10 should give you around 2 mins (in the current lighting condition here).

[MartinP]

So the filter isn't ND or 10 stops then...

[Major Bloodnok]

Looks as if they've sent an IR filter by mistake.

[Gemm]

Does it say ND 3.0 on the side of the filter?

[LandR]

Gemm said:

Does it say ND 3.0 on the side of the filter?

Yes, it does.

Edited by LandR on Monday 2nd December 22:15

[JustinMinns]

Major Bloodnok said:

Looks as if they've sent an IR filter by mistake.

Agreed

[LandR]

The filter is definitely labelled as ND, but I just did a test. I took a photo of a spot light, then I held the filter at arms length and took a photo of the spot light through the filter...





It's red.