Still amazed at what this filter can do, after multiple months of use. I used to think, in most instances, you could "just do it in photoshop." And that "style" filters like this were unnecessary.

I was wrong.

I've never been able to capture the warm, slightly soft (yet still detailed), almost ethereal feeling images that this filter provides. Not with different color lights, not with depth of field, not even with a spherical aberration filter.

It makes every portrait - no matter the environment - feel richer and more "professional." This is always on an 85mm or 100mm lens and is always connected to a body. Simply grabbing the camera and snapping a shot of a cat - a casual picture you might take with your cell phone - turns out so much richer. More deliberate photos of people are totally transformed.

The filter is worth the price, in my opinion. If you are a professional, it will pay for itself the minute you put it on the lens. Even if you are not being paid, when you look back at your photos months later (as I am now) you will find yourself drawn to the images taken with this filter.

The first picture of the light is without the filter, the second is with the filter. That is the most extreme difference you will see - shooting into direct light. In general the effect is not extreme: on one will think "oh that's a filter," it just adds a little something that is difficult to put into words.