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Dropped $260 on a light pollution filter for my DSLR and I want my money back
So I've been shooting the Milky Way from my backyard near Phoenix for about a year now and I kept reading that a light pollution filter was the magic fix for washed out skies. Spent $260 on one back in January and honestly my photos look worse, not better. The filter eats a bunch of the real color from nebulas and stars, so everything comes out this weird teal gray and I end up fighting it in editing for an hour per shot. Turns out the thing only helps with certain kinds of streetlights anyway, and my neighborhood switched to LED a while back so it does basically nothing for my glow problem. What really fixed it was driving 45 minutes out past Apache Junction where the sky is way darker, no filter needed. I changed my mind hard on this one. If you're thinking about buying a filter to save your backyard shots, just put that money toward gas instead. Anyone here actually get good results from one, or did I just pick the wrong kind?
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theathomas14d ago
LEDs really are the killer here. The old sodium streetlights put out light at very specific wavelengths, so a filter could block those narrow bands and still let through most of what you want from the stars. LEDs blast light across the whole spectrum, so there's no clean gap to cut out anymore. A filter built for the old lights just ends up cutting your nebulae too, which is exactly the teal gray mess you're describing. You'd almost need a different filter for every neighborhood, and even then it's a losing fight. That drive out past Apache Junction is doing more than any piece of glass ever will.
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