Nisi Natural Night filter – first impressions

Recently I got the Nisi Filter holder for the Laowa 12mm lens, and also the Nisi V5 Pro holder for all my other lenses (have not doe my fist impressions on that, but will get to it soon :)) and while ordering those, the Natural Night filter from Nisi caught my eye. As I do a lot of night photos, and the cities in Europe, especially the old towns, are lit by crazy strong yellow lights, I thought this might be useful.

I only had it for few days now, but I managed to go out and try it out. I’m far from reaching a conclusion on it, and I’m not yet sure if it’s worth the price. I tried to edit the unfiltered images so they look like the filtered ones, and I got quite close. But I do have to say, I liked the results with the filter more, especially the blue of the sky. I plan to use it in Dubai in two weeks, so after that it would be easier to judge.

For now, here are few test shots. Each one I took with and without the filter. In some, there can be a bit of zooming out or in, as each time I was putting on or removing the filter, I managed to move the camera really slightly.

Comparison images

Each pair of photos here, is a photo without the filter used, and a photo with the filter used. You can also download the source RAW files here of all these photos, if you want to compare for yourself. I included also DNG versions, in case you can’t open CR2 files from the 5D mark IV. Each time I used the same settings (the photo with the filter is darker, as one looses around half a stop of light by using it), and with auto white balance. The only edit done is that, few of them are brightened, but it’s the same amount with and without filter.

Btw. the redness in the light in the filtered ones, can be very easily removed by tweaking the Red Primary slider under Camera calibration in Lightroom.

No filter

Night light filter

No filter

Night light filter

No filter

Night light filter