REVIEW: Tiffen Color Grandient Sunrise Filter

Tiffen sent us in one of their most impressive filters for a review. The 52mm color grandient Sunrise filter, or as I call it, the "CSI:Miami filter".

The filter, which comes in a number of sizes, it has an orange & transparent gradient that transforms either sunrise or sunsets to a more colorful experience. These days it's easy to add "in post" such gradients using multi-track NLEs, but nothing beats the clean and authentic sensor image you get when you use a filter instead.

The filter allows you to rotate it, so this way the photo/videographer can decide which part of the image to intensify. We tested the filter during sundown, in San Frascisco. The results are very telling, both in the low-quality version we uploaded on YouTube and on the better quality PSP/iPhone version we uploaded here (11 MBs).

One interesting aspect of the Tiffen filters is how resilient they are. The evening we were shooting there was quite some wind and the filter fell on the concrete while we were trying to remove it from the camera. We were relieved to see that there was not a single scratch or break on the glass, which speaks volumes about the product's quality.

In conclusion, this is a great special effect filter, and it's the same kind of filter that the director of photography of CSI:Miami uses. If you are after similar breathtaking scenes (tutorial), that's the filter to get.