That friend who said stacking filters would ruin my photos was right all along

I spent like 3 months layering a UV filter and a polarizer on my kit lens. Thought I was being smart cutting glare. Then my buddy Dave looked at one of my shots of the Milky Way from last summer and pointed out all the internal reflections. I checked the raw files and yep there were these weird ghost spots I never noticed. He told me to just use one filter or none at all and the next clear night I went out with nothing extra on the lens. The difference was night and day way sharper stars. Has anyone else wasted time stacking filters before realizing it messes up your astro shots?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_pat1mo ago

and here I thought I was being clever stacking a clear filter on top of my circular polarizer for my astro shots... took me a solid month of wondering why my stars looked like little comets before I realised the UV filter was causing all these weird reflections off the sensor. stripped everything off except the polarizer for daytime stuff and the difference was insane. even just one filter adds extra glass for light to bounce around so you're basically asking for ghost flares and reduced contrast the more you stack.

jordan_anderson901mo ago

Bet you had to zoom in 500% to even notice that though. I ran my lens cap as a filter for a week before I caught on and my shots still looked fine. Some people act like a piece of glass is gonna ruin their whole life.