On a dreary day, I mistakingly shot with the CineBloom filter in lackluster lighting conditions and the diffusion filter made the scenes even more dreary. Whether using it on daytime for backlit scenes or during nighttime to enhance the halos of city lights and car lights it works very well if you like that style. This Recipe wasn’t necessarily purposefully intended for night photography, but it shouldn’t be surprising that it does well for it. Around Christmas time I took my GFX 50R out for some night/evening photos in the downtown core of Vancouver. Many photographers use diffusion filters to create creative images for their travel, streets and portrait photography.

The diffusion filter also doubles as a bokeh enhancer making images look softer and the transition of bright light more pleasing. If you watch some movies again after learning this much about these filters, we are pretty sure you will be able to recognize the scenes where filmmakers used them. A 10% CineBloom and 1/4 Black Pro Mist are occasionally used, while a 20% CineBloom is almost never used because it is so strong. Moment primarily markets these filters to videographers and cinematographers, but I find them particularly useful for street photography. It’s often difficult to retouch skins in video, so this filter is like magic, and softens skins and removes any harshness when you’re shooting people.As a mother of four and behind-the-scenes Fuji X Weekly cohort, Amanda is quite busy, and doesn’t have time for extensive editing, so post-processing pictures could not be a prerequisite for achieving a filmic aesthetic.

The diffusion filters are designed to take the edge off the typical look created by digital sensors, soften the transition of light sources, and also smoothen skin tones for portraits. Moment Cinebloom 10% is the most extreme filter, it gives the most bloom and the removes the most contrast from hightlights and shadows. Densities of 10%, ideal for smoothing and neutralizing halation on CineStill Films, and 20% is more suited for night footage. The current crop of cameras / lenses is way too resolving for most portraiture, which is why we are finding ways of dealing with this on the shoot or in post.The imperfection that grain and blacks have in film photography, is part of what we try to emulate when using VSCO or any film preset in Lightroom. If I could only have one, it would be the 5% CineBloom, but I do use the 10% CineBloom and 1/4 Black Pro Mist sometimes, and even use them together, so it’s nice having them around. A diffusion filter gives halation with lights, creating a neutral “glow” around points of light, especially in low light scenarios. They help to remove some of the digital crispness to create a film-like appearance, which is the look I’m going for.