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Have you ever heard of the HOYA Sparkle filters before? Me neither. But it looks like this is about to change as Hoya is investing more in marketing to push these.
Since I moved to my new studio, quite a few agencies have approached me, offering collaborations. Among them is the professional video, photo and broadcast supplier Holdan who distributes Hoya, as well as Samyang and others. I already use some Hoya filters and a couple Samyang lenses. So it made sense to me to agree to discuss terms with them.
The collaboration is very open and friendly. The agency sends me the products to test and eventually review, but they give me complete creative freedom. I can decide what content to produce and do it on my own terms. They don't get to influence the output or see the content before publishing. They don't even send me marketing material that could somehow indicate a direction for the things to say. It's all completely open, and I am expected to be fully honest in my review. Which, to me, is the base foundation of a collab.
Hoya Sparkle filters
So, the Hoya Sparkle filters were the first product I received. They come in 2 variants, a 4x and 6x, producing stars with 4 or 6 spikes, respectively. Yes, this is what these filters do. They take the lights in the frame (like lampposts, for example) and turn them into fairy-like stars.
Normally, you can achieve this by closing the Aperture of a lens to its minimum values. But then there is very little control over the results. They very much depend on the lens, and it may not happen at all with some lenses, like long telephoto lenses. Moreover, closing the aperture beyond F/11 or F/13 may begin to introduce diffraction and affect the sharpness of a photo.
With the Hoya Sparkle filters, you instead take full control.
The Video
Now, I will keep all the technical discussion for the actual review of these Hoya Sparkle filters, so let's focus on today's video…
As I said, I have complete creative freedom here. So the first thing I did was film my nights out in London while testing these filters and then create a short collage film. I sent this to the agency, and they loved it. And so did Hoya, who are now using the video on all product pages on their website as well!
So, here it is. Please enjoy and let me know your feedback in the comments section below.
Here's the direct link in case the embed fails to load: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1xWKCKgwG4
The Hoya Sparkle filters review will come soon, so don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for this and more!
Cheers!
