Digital Filters

Heliopan Digital Filter

This filter has been especially designed for imaging with digital sensors since they have a significantly higher sensitivity in the IR area then film material it blocks both disturbing UV and IR light. The result is improved color separation and sharpness.

The UV protection blocks UV radiation in daylight. In addition colors are improved especially in the blue and red channels. Since artificial light contains especially high IR radiation the filter ensures better control of the blue channel. This dichroic coated specialty filter should not be used with extreme wide angle lenses.

Heliopan UV Filter

The UV or Haze filter is not only an excellent filter for visually improving images on both digital and film but it can always stay on the lens to protect it from fingerprints, dust, moisture, etc. It absorbs the short wave portion of the spectrum so in hazy conditions a better image of the scene is possible. Loss of sharpness from UV Rays and the blue tones common in infinity scenes are eliminated. No exposure correction is needed. Available in both standard and SH-PMC coatings.

Heliopan Protection Filter

The Heliopan Protection Filter is optimally ground from special raw glass and coated with Heliopan's SH-PMC 16 layer multi-coating to protect the lens while adding no color whatsoever. This protects the lens, and to avoid expensive repairs to lenses, especially as many digicams have a non-removable built-in zoom lens.

Heliopan KR 1.5 Skylight (1A) Filter

This light salmon colored skylight filter reduces the bluish cast in scenic shots, in snow scenes or of normal objecs around noon time it adds a pleasant warmth and soft color character with digital cameras whose sunlight white balance can be too cool it absorbs UV Rays and servers as a protection filter as no exposure correction is necessary. It is available in standard and SH-PMC coatings.

Heliopan Polarizing Filters

Polarizing Filters reduce reflections and glare, they are a neutral color and can be used for color or black and white imaging.
As the light coming from the sun is not polarized parts of the light become partially polarized due to the scattering of particles in the atmosphere. This scattering reduces the transparency of the air and creates haze in the distance and the blue in the sky on a sunny day.

Polarization also controls in the reflections of light on the original color of the surface.

The Heliopan Polarizer improves the color of the sky, (in distant pictures, mountain scenes, etc.) it reduces the bluish cast in landscapes and increases the blue color of the sky. The effect is strongest at a 90 degree angle to the sun.

In addition polarizers enchance the color saturation of the scene by suppressing the reflections on the surface, undesired reflections are largely eliminated.

While increasing color saturation with software can also improve the color saturation the faded parts of the leaves in the illustration above will increase as well. This procedure will not replace the need for a polarizer. For digicams we recommend using a circular polarizer, linear polarizers may result in incorrect exposure or focus under some lighting conditions. They are available with or without SH-PMC coating and in slim or standard rims. The rims are calibrated to help in finding the proper settings when a TTL preview is not available.

Heliopan Neutral Density Filters

Neutral Density filters are important tools for controlling light reduction. They permit less depth of field under bright lighting since the aperture has to be larger and, in addition, they permit long time exposures with stronger ND filters in sunlight.

With digital imaging over exposure can be avoided resulting in natural color reporduction. ND gray filters are manufactured from color neutral Schott glass so they can be used for color imaging. They are available in 3 densities. Higher densities are available on special order for technical and scientific applications.

On most digicams the imaging sensor is smaller than the 35mm format. This results in a relatively large depth of field, even with a large aperture opening this can be disturbing - when eg. A portrait has to be separated from the background and the available light requires the use of a smaller aperture, reducing the available light allows the choice of the best aperture. Also with digicams that only operate in full auto mode, the depth of field can be reduced. Digicams frequently have fewer apertures then film camera, (eg. 2.8 to 5.6 or 2.0 to 8.0) a neutral density filter allows a much larger choice of exposure combinations.

Heliopan Close-Up Lenses

Close-up lenses are used when you need to extend the camera's focusing range into the close-up range. These convex lenses (+) shorten the focal length while maintaining the same distance setting. They are available in the most popular screw-in sizes. Close-up lenses can be combined to obtain greater strengths. No exposure correction is required. The following strengths are available: NL 1.0, NL 2.0, NL 3.0, NL 4.0. The higher the number the closer you can focus. For best results stop down to f 5.6 or f8.

Heliopan Infrared Filters

A very interesting area in digital photography is infrared images for creative and artistic effects. Heliopan filters made from Schott glass pass only the exact areas of the IR Spectrum. RG695(89B), RG715(88A), RG780(87), RG850, RG1000. For digital landscape pictures we recommend the R715 to RG830 filters.