My name is Don McVey and this is a test of all LEE Filters diffusions,
done with Kieron Jansch of Manned Camera on his Arri Amira.
We used an Arri M8, which is a lovely 800W HMI.
I'm sure you've used a 216. It's a diffusion I've used a lot in the past.
It's very, very soft.
One of the reasons I wanted to do this test is because I've probably been overusing 216.
It's such a popular diffusion – it goes out on shoots all the time.
I had used other diffusions in the past, but not that many.
What I wanted to do was go through the whole LEE Filters range,
see what every diffusion does, and give people the tools to make informed decisions.
As you step down these white diffusions, you start to see it becomes very subtle,
but you're still able to see it's doing something nice.
By the time you get down to a Quarter White Diffusion,
and the next one, an Eighth White Diffusion, the effect is very subtle compared with the naked M8.
If you look at them side by side,
you can see that the diffusion knocks just a little bit off the edge of the shadow
– and that's really what I wanted to find out.
The 400 is another very strong, soft diffusion. To my eye, it looks very similar to the 216.
If you look at them side by side, you can see there are subtle differences.
I used Hollywood Frost on a job recently where I was doing a ‘Usual Suspects' - type line-up of six subjects.
We didn't want any light fall-off – I just wanted to take the edge off the shadow,
and Hollywood Frost worked beautifully.
I wouldn't have known it was going to work if I hadn't done this test.
It showed me the power of doing these tests.
I also showed the director this video and we went through eight or nine different diffusions
to choose the one that would be best for the look she wanted.
What we find with some of these frosts is that they don't change the detail of the shadow,
but they do soften some hotspots on the skin.
Sometimes it looks as if the frosts aren't doing much,
but actually they're evening out skin tone
and changing the quality of light across the skin very slightly.
You have to look at them side by side to see what they are doing.
We wanted to keep these tests as scientific as possible,
so we used a light meter to measure the amount of light taken out by each diffusion.
We found that by flagging off the light completely and not allowing any spill around the side,
we got very dark shadows, which were quite distracting.
So we allowed a bit of light to spill on to the white floor,
which bounced back up into our model's face and did a lovely job of filling in the shadows.
The T-stop values are what we were measuring on the day,
but you need to take into account that little bit of spill.
If you want to know how much light a diffusion takes out, visit the LEE Filters website.
Heavy Frost is very similar to a 216 or a 400,
but you will find a slightly different tone to the skin and a different quality of light.
Heavy Quiet Frost warms the skin tones ever so slightly.
There's a similar soft effect in the shadow to some of the other diffusions,
but the colour tone changes very slightly.
When you go through these filters you need to know which ones
are going to affect the colour of your image and not just the softness of the shadows.
Any difference you see in colour across these tests is completely down to the diffusions.
We didn't grade this image at all, we just put on a standard Amira LUT.
Straight away you can see that a Half Soft Frost has cooled the scene down a little.
Half Soft Frost is a favourite of Shane Hurlbut.
If you're not on the Inner Circle (www.hurlbutvisuals.com) join today, as it's a fantastic resource.
As soon as I saw Highlight, I liked it.
I don't know why, I just knew there was something very nice about it.
I've not used Grid Cloth much in the past,
but as soon as I put it up I could see it was doing something very nice to the skin tones.
It maybe adds a tiny hint of yellow.
Grid Cloths are a fantastic material to work with.
They're the same material that kites are made from, so they're extremely strong and tough.
I used the Quarter Grid Cloth on a recent shoot,
because the director and I wanted to keep some detail in the shadows,
and it was absolutely perfect.
I'm not sure whether the Quiet Grid Cloths do anything different to the image,
but they help the soundman as they don't rustle as much in the wind.
I can confirm I gave the Quiet Grid Cloths a little rustle, and they are quiet.
I find the Tough Spuns to be quite similar to the White Diffusions,
but they maybe hold a little more detail in the shadows.
We have these very subtle diffusion effects.
The Quarter Spun just takes the edges off the shadows.
This may be exactly what you need for a specific job.
The Flame-Retardant Spuns are said to be non-yellowing.
I don't know whether this means that the Tough Spuns before were adding a bit of yellow to the skin.
You'd have to look at them side by side to see the difference.
I'm going to put screen grabs from this test on my website with two galleries side by side,
so you can cycle through each diffusion and see the comparisons for yourself.
Perforated diffusions are supposed to be used with Kino Flos,
but we thought we'd use the M8 anyway and see what happened.
Perforated diffusions have little holes in them,
so the soft light from the Kino can penetrate easier,
but it still takes the edge off that type of light.
We also used an Arri Tungsten T2, which has very similar photometrics to the M8.
We used a tungsten source firstly so we could test the daylight-corrected diffusions,
but we also wanted to see the difference between tungsten and daylight
when it came to the coloured diffusions.
There's just 1/8 CTB added to this diffusion,
which cools the image down slightly from the tungsten source.
We have a full CTB correction, we have the camera at 5600K and a tungsten light.
To my eye, this image definitely needs some colour correction.
But I wanted to show you what it looked like straight out of the camera
with that daylight-corrected diffusion on it.
Here's another fully daylight-corrected diffusion. Again we have slightly different colours.
You'll see that now the light has been flagged off completely and is now very high in contrast.
That's because we're using a tungsten source and daylight-corrected diffusions,
and didn't want any spill to interfere with the colours.
What you see is what the diffusion does to a tungsten light.
Because it's half CTB, we shot it at 3200K and 5600K, to show you the difference.
Here's a 1/8 CTB, which cools down a tungsten source very slightly.
Again full CTB has taken out a lot of light because you have the diffusion plus the colour.
To my eye, it's too pink.
This is a Neutral Density diffusion.
It can be used when there's sunlight coming through a window
so you're taking out light and diffusing your image.
These are the colour-effect diffusions.
We tested them with the M8 and a T2, to demonstrate the difference between an HMI and a tungsten source.
I really like this Moroccan Frost.
It just does something nice to skin tones and gives you an evening hour glow.
The Hampshire Rose is designed specifically to enhance skin tones.
Here again, we have the M8 and the T2, so you can decide which one you prefer
– the tungsten or the daylight.
These Amber Keys are also ideal for warming everything up a little.
Would I use a combined colour-effect gel and diffusion in one? I'm not sure.
I'd maybe use a separate diffusion and put a colour effect over the light,
but I can see the advantage in some situations to having it all in one roll of diffusion.
I hope these tests have been useful.
I certainly learned a lot from carrying them out
and am going to use many more diffusions across my work from now on.
Thank you.