Kase Dream Star Filter - Create Artistic Night Sky Photography!
Kase Dream Filter Review - Night Sky Photography
The Kase Dream Star Filter has changed my Night Photography, allowing me to reconnect with older locations to change the overall feel of a scene. Night sky photography is one of the most rewarding types of photography for Landscape Photographers. All the elements have to align to create your vision: weather, moon cycle, time of year and knowledge of the area.
Of course, apps such as Photopills help us in diverse situations throughout the year. Learning from my 'Online Photography Membership' will increase our chances to capture beautiful and dynamic images, especially if you're at the beginning of your photography journey.
The rewards are astronomical when the stars align (no pun intended, ok, maybe a little)! Witnessing the milky way appears on the back of your camera screen, aligned directly behind the foreground subject; it's always a thrilling moment.
Finally, the hard work has paid off!
Dream Filter: The Filter To Grow Your Night Photography Passion
While running my landscape photography workshops in the darkest locations of Wilpena Pound and the Yorke Peninsula, I always ask my attendees, "what is their favourite part of the workshop" 99% of the time, the answer will be learning how to capture the night sky.
My response: "Welcome to the addictive but enriching world of Night Photography". Personally, that is why I love Night Photography, as once you've learnt and mastered the basics, the world is your oyster.
The next step with night photography is similar to the progression experienced in landscape photography, finding your unique and artistic style: creating panoramics, time blending, stacking images to reduce noise or star trails. These are all in-camera techniques. There is other beneficial photography equipment that can assist us with creating unique photos.
Recently I was lucky enough to get my hands on the Kase Filters Dream Star Filter at Outback South Australia to capture the impact it would showcase on the starry night skies.
Here's a before and after shot:
I have converted my Dream Star Filter to become magnetic, working with the H&Y magnetic system. However, you can use the filter with any other 100mm brand system as the slots are the same as other ND filters.
Kase Filters: Dream Star Filter Review
The Dream Star filter is a magical way to create a more vibrant night sky images while adding a dreamy glow appeal to your stars. During my vlog, I stated that the Dream Star filter has a time and a place in my photography, particularly with scenes where you have reflections of the stars or seascape night photography. Living in the outback of South Australia, I feel that adding a dreamy star effect to the rugged and harsh landscapes may be a clash of moods.
Furthermore, enhancing a landscape scene such as a perfectly still reflection on a lake of the night sky with the dream glow filter would significantly impact the overall mood.
Imagine this, photographing on a dramatic coastline with the waves crashing in, capturing a one or two-minute exposure for the foreground already creates a dreamy, mystical effect from the long exposure. Having the ability to 'finish off' an image with a unique style by adding an additional "dreamy effect" with the Kase filter would be a complete gamechanger.
Please Note: Although this adds a beautiful glow to the sky, it (may) have a negative effect on your foreground. As a result, the foreground will appear soft or a little out of focus.
I always recommend capturing the Night Sky and foreground as two almost separate images. What I mean by this is changing your settings completely. My primary night lens, the Fujifilm XF 16mm F1.4, suffers from a lousy coma at F1.4, why I choose to shoot all my night sky images at F/2. With this in mind, we can treat the night sky with that beautiful dreamy effect, then whilst changing camera settings to capture the foreground, we can remove the Dream Star filter to bypass that soft or out of focus effect.
If you're a beginner at Night Photography, I would love to help you out with my Online Photography Membership, which has helped 1000's of other photographers.
Conclusion: Make a Great Filter - Better!
I have to start by saying, I bloody love this filter! Moving forward with my Night Photography, having the ability to have a single filter that can completely change a scene is worthwhile on its own!
The one thing in the future I would love to see from Kase is creating a graduated version of this filter. As previously stated, it will heavily impact the sky with this filter, but the same goes for the foreground. Creating a soft or out of focus appeal to your image with a graduated version would eliminate this effect.
Lastly, with the H&Y magnetic filter frame, removing the Kase Dream Filter is straightforward to obtain images with and without the filter. Therefore, my argument for a graduated version is almost irrelevant, especially when sky replacements in post-production are as simple as a click of a button these days!
Would I recommend this filter to Night Sky photography lovers: 101%
Check the latest price of the Kase Dream Filter here.