I purchased my 77mm striped prism filter near the end of last summer in 2023. I thought it would add some pizazz to my fall and winter photos. I was also looking forward to using it during a November 2023 visit to my recently deceased friend Ray.
The filter splits the subject of an image into two or more parts and adds chromatic artifacts, making a plain image more intriguing and abstract. It screws into the end of any lens it fits (77mm for my version) and adapters can be used to fit it to smaller lenses. However, life threw a curveball at me before I had a chance to use it.
My daughter Ashlyn informed me in early September that she was taking a photography course in her last year of university and she was wondering if she might borrow a macro lens for it. Having been the one to give her the Canon she was using, I was aware that her camera and lens were “just okay” and knew that she would get better results from higher quality kit.
Jr High, Strathmore, AB, 2024-03-23
Strathmore, AB, 2024-03-23
I packed a semi-pro quality Canon 5Ds camera body into a sling bag along with my macro lens, super wide angle, moderate telephoto, and my 24-70 EF L USM lens that my prism filter fit onto. I no longer had a lens that would natively fit a 77mm filter, so it got shoved into a corner and forgotten until recently.
My kid got some better lenses for Christmas and my 24-70mm came back home to daddy. Even better, I scored a hella good deal on a Canon 17-40 EF L USM lens through an eBay auction and the 77mm filter fits it as well. So said filter came out to play today.
I took a test shot of the park across the road from my home that I expected to be a throwaway, but it turned out to be the image I liked best from today and it is at the top of this diary entry. I cruised over to Crowther Memorial Jr High School to get a few more pixels in my bucket.
The resulting pictures looked a bit abstract, so I decided to take them the rest of the way by adding some textures and light leak effects, etc. It’s nice when you come home with better images than you were expecting, and to also find a new take on an old subject using some specialty kit.
Today’s images were made using a Canon EOS R5 and a Canon 17-40mm EF L USM f4-5.6 lens with the aforementioned filter. Post-processing effects added in ON1 Effects 10.
