Hoya has today launched two new filters. Well, to be correct, one new filter and one new filter set. The single filter is the Hoya Starscape filter, which cuts through light pollution when shooting astrophotography. The set is the new Hoya ProND Filter Kit, comprised of 3, 6 and 10 stops neutral density filters, designed for both photography and filmmakers.
Hoya Starscape Light Pollution Cut Filter
The Hoya Starscape is designed specifically for nightscape photography. They say it reduces the yellow/green light pollution often seen in the skies from artificial city lights to help produce a more natural colour reproduction and improve overall contrast. Specifically, it cuts light transmission in the area of the spectrum usually associated with light pollution from sodium and mercury vapour lights used in many cities.
Image created with the Hoya Starscape filter / © Christophe Anagnostopoulos
It features a low profile frame, allowing it to be used with wide and ultra-wide-angle lenses, letting you get those wide night time landscape shots with the milky way in the background. They sat that it can also be combined with Hoya’s Softon filters to further enhance stars.
Image created with the Hoya Starscape + Sotfton filters / © Andrew Legget
The sample images sent to us by Hoya do look pretty impressive. They look as if they cut through your typical sodium and mercury vapour street light pollution pretty well. But how about LED lights? They’re typically on a very different wavelength. Most of the ones around here look almost daylight balanced. It would be interesting to see how it copes with those, and how performance of the filter is affected in different parts of the world where LED street lights have seen widespread adoption.
There’s no word on price yet, but they’re expected to become available at all the usual retailers during December 2019 in all sizes from 49-82mm. Find out more on the Hoya website.
Hoya ProND Filter Kit
Hoya has offered individual ProND filters for a while now, ranging from a single stop all the way up to to a somewhat odd 16 3/5 stops of light reduction. This new kit, though, puts Hoya’s three most popular ProND filters, the ND8 (3 stops), ND64 (6 stops) and ND1000 (10 stops) together in a single folding padded case.
Although the individual filters have been around for a while already, having them together in a kit should help bring the combined price down a little for those who’d planned to buy all three. That being said, they haven’t released the price of the kits yet.
Like the Starscape filter, they’re expected to become available in December 2019 in all diameters from 49-82mm. Find out more on the Hoya website.
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