Irix Edge Filters Review

Dustin Abbott

April 7th, 2019

Irix made their mark with a bevy of well-received wide angle lenses, including a super-wide-angle 11mm F4 lens along with a 15mm F2.4 that I reviewed last year. Their most recent lens release has set their sites in a different direction – a telephoto macro lens. The Irix 150mm F2.8 1:1 Macro is a very intriguing lens featuring a longer-than-usual focal length, a large maximum aperture, and Irix’ signature quality build. It’s already caught the attention of the industry and has received the iF Design Reward for 2019 – an impressive achievement! You can find my review of the Irix 150M here. But Irix has embraced a more holistic approach to their lens design, recognizing that photographers also need filter systems and solutions to help create compelling images. A good filter used properly can really expand your artistic options and is worth investing in. The Irix EDGE filters are nicely made, reasonably priced options that are solid alternatives to the well-known filter brands Join me for a closer look at the Irix Edge filters and to determine if they just might be the filters for you (shot below taken with the EDGE CP-L filter mounted on a Fujinon XF 16-55mm F2.8).

Prefer to watch your reviews? Take a look at my video review here:

Images of the Irix Edge Filters

One nice thing about Irix EDGE filters is the fact that Irix sells a lens with a 95mm front filter thread (15mm F2.4), which means that larger filter sizes are on Irix’ radar. I see filters in most all sizes between 52mm and 95mm. I think their 95mm filters, in particular, are very competitively priced relative to the competition probably to help their 15mm F2.4 lens compensate for having such a large filter size.

The Irix Edge filters come in somewhat non-traditional packaging. Traditional filters come in smaller plastic cases with the filter sitting on a bit of foam and on display through the clear packaging, but the Irix EDGE filters come in a larger, slim plastic case with a card-stock like paper slider that has branding information and specs on it. The actual plastic case has an incorporated handle and clips open on the side. The filter itself sits in a molded dense foam that is shaped for the filter with two slots to allow one to easily grip the filter and bring it out.

The Irix Edge filters feature waterproof and oil repellent NANO coating prevent from stains, fingerprints and enable using in extreme weather conditions. The NANO coating is also anti-reflective, and is put on both sides of the optical glass in the filters to help minimize reflections (which can be an issue with some filters). They are very low profile filters, which is an important key to limiting vignette on certain lenses (like their 15mm F2.4 lens, for example). I tested a ND1000, a circular polarizer, and their proprietary new Light Pollution filter. The ND1000 was the slimmest at 3.5mm, followed by the light pollution filter at 4mm, and finally the circular polarizer at 5mm. The filters also have a nicely knurled edge that makes them easy to grip (and rotate in some cases).

The filters are (according to Irix) designed to compliment the aesthetics of the Irix lenses, though, to be fair, filters pretty much look like filters and I doubt you’ll notice much.

We’ll take a quick look at the individual filters, their purpose, and how they perform. I’ve used a lot of different filters over the years, and here are some of the things I look for:

Color casts | some filters (particularly ND filters) tend to introduce a color cast to images. Obviously the more neutral the better here.
Vignetting | this primarily comes down to the thickness of the filter
Reflections and flare | some filters introduce more flare artifacts when shooting into a backlit scene.
Clarity | putting a bad filter in front of a good lens is like smearing Vaseline on the front of the lens.

While there is some debate on this issue, I’ve personally moved away from using UV or protective filters. Most good lenses released in the past few years come with good, hard protective coatings on them that are resistant to scratching. It’s been well documented that digital sensors aren’t affected by UV light like film was, so that’s also a moot point. I’ve found that UV filters often introduce a weak link into flare resistance, for example, and I don’t consider the trade-off worth it. Your mileage may vary, and, if you want them, Irix sells UV filters in a wide variety of sizes.

Irix Circular Polarizing Filter

A circular polarizing filter is, I believe, the most important filter in a photographer’s kit. It can be used to help eliminate reflections and glare depending on where you rotate it to. Take, for example these two photos with a coach in the background. The leather surface of the couch is reflecting the sun from the window in the back. Because of the polarizing filter, I can choose how much of the reflection is there.

The difference in the two shots is simply the angle of rotation I dialed in with the filter. I will often use a CP-L to control the amount of reflectiveness on shiny surfaces like water or glass, too.

A CP-L can also be used to intensify a sky, giving photos a more contrasty look. I’ve done that with this shot of the Wyndam SeaWatch Plantation resort I stayed at in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The photo is essentially unedited in post; the effect was achieved in camera.

Above all, though, I love the additional punch that a CP-L gives to colors and contrast. It helps lenses become a little more “Zeiss-like” in their “pop”. You’ll be able to see what I mean in the gallery below:

Irix ND1000 Filter

Neutral Density filters are designed to limit the amount of light that reaches the sensor. There are a number of applications for this, including trying to set a certain frame rate for video, trying to lower shutter speed to sync with flash units or to use wide aperture lenses in bright light, or, most commonly, to allow for long exposure photography. Often a long exposure allows for a more visually interesting image where dynamic elements (skies or water) are smoothed out. Case in point is this photo underneath a pier. Without a filter, the chop and movement of the water makes for a slightly busy image.

Add a ten stop ND1000 filter and you can use a much longer exposure time, which smooths the water and creates a more visually interesting image.

My primary concern with ND filters (particularly “heavy” ones like the 10-stop ND filter I’m testing here) is that lower quality glass can introduce color casts (I’ve seen magenta and cyan casts most commonly). We can see that this wasn’t the case with the images above.

A secondary concern is that if a filter isn’t nice and slim, the longer exposure period really intensifies vignette. Fortunately that isn’t a problem with the EDGE filters, and I’ve not noticed any additional vignette when using the ND1000 filter on the wide angle 15mm lens. This image is a 30 second exposure taken with the Irix EDGE ND1000 filter on the Irix 15mm F2.4 lens. While the bare lens does have some vignette, I did not have to do any additional vignette correction with the filter attached, nor did I have to do any color balance correction.

The final concern is that filters can reduce clarity on an image if the optical glass isn’t high quality. A bad filter can make a great lens look like garbage. Fortunately, that’s not the case here. Here’s a more than 3 minute exposure I took of Niagara Falls using the Irix 15mm and the EDGE ND1000. As you can see from the roughly 125% crop, detail has held up exquisitely well.

Here’s a gallery with a few other images taken with the EDGE ND1000 filter.

Irix Edge Light Pollution Filter

The final filter that I looked at was Irix’s new Light Pollution filter. This filter reduces yellow light, helping to eliminate the murky, yellowish cast to images taken at night or in cities. The byproduct is a cooler, cleaner, more dynamic look that works well in the right situation. It’s definitely an improvement for astrophotography work:

When used in daylight, it creates a cooler image that has it’s own visual charm:

I don’t live in a major city, so my uses for this type of lens are fewer, but I did like the effect for some of my winter images as it gave them a cool, wintry look.

Here’s a few more from the Light Pollution filter (used on the Laowa 15mm F2 Zero D lens for Sony FE).

Price and Conclusion

My experience with the Irix EDGE filters has been very positive. They are not fancy or exotic, but they are well made, optically excellent, and extremely competitively priced. The 77mm Circular Polarizer that I tested can be had for only $65, the massive 95mm ND1000 for $130, and the 72mm Light Pollution filter I tested rings in at $122. Filters can become very expensive, but to get well-made filters with Nano coatings and great performance for this price helps eliminate some of the sting. Irix also makes a very reasonably priced square filter holder, which then opens the door to using ND grad filters effectively. In a broader sense, however, I also want to commend Irix for thinking about the big picture of how their lenses will be used. Often photographers buy lenses and then are left stuck when it comes to after-market filter solutions, but Irix is doing a good job of supporting their products and allowing photographers to get the best out of them…something not every lens maker does.

Thanks to Irix for the loaners!

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Keywords: Irix Edge, Edge Filters, Edge, Irix, Review, Dustin Abbott, Circular Polarizer, UV, Neutral Density, ND1000, Light Pollution, Irix 150mm, 150mm Macro, Irix 150 Macro, Irix 150mm Macro, Irix 15mm, Long Exposure, Irix 11mm, 15mm, 11mm, Irix 15, Irix 11, Reflections, Sample Images, Video Test

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Aurora Aperture PowerND Rear Filter Kit Review

Dustin Abbott

September 23rd, 2018

Wide angle lenses and filters are a bit of a nightmare. One of the main challenges many photographers have to consider is that using anything but the bare lens involves expense, bulk, and inconvenience. Lenses with less focal lengths and smaller maximum apertures can often use typical screw-in filters, but at the cost of less dramatic angles of view and less light gathering potential. Fortunately there are some people out there who are applying themselves to trying to solve these problems, and one of them is Aurora Aperture. They have carved out a niche for themselves by making quality, innovative, and reasonably-priced filters. One of their more recent projects is the PowerND rear filter kit that tackles those lenses where standard screw-in filters are out of the question. They primarily make the PowerND kit for Canon lenses (those with a rear gel-filter holder), including:

EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye
EF 11-24mm F4L USM
EF 14mm f/2.8L USM
EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye
EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM
EF 17-35mm f/2.8L USM
EF 17-40mm f/4L USM

You can catch my full video review here:

In this case, I’m actually reviewing the kit on the Irix 15mm f/2.4 Blackstone lens that I recently reviewed. The Irix lens is unusual in that it has a wide focal length (15mm), wide maximum aperture (f/2.4), and yet can still take screw-in filters, though at a very large 95mm size. It also has a rear gel filter holder. Aurora Aperture makes this PowerND filter kit for the Irix 15mm, but also the 11mm f/4, which cannot use screw-in filters.

The traditional problem with gel filters is that they are optically uninspiring. By nature they are made of inferior materials (gelatin), which produces reduced optical performance in terms of resolution and clarity. They also often introduce color casts (typically blue or magenta depending on the manufacturer). Traditional screw on ND filters also frequently have an issue with color casts, in my experience (I’ve used a number of different filters and systems from a number of different manufacturers), and they also typically have a problem with introducing heavy vignetting. Any natural (mechanical) vignette introduced by adding something to the front of a lens gets more and more exaggerated the longer the exposure lasts.

But without filters, photographers have few options for limiting the amount of light that reaches the sensor, making long exposure shots near impossible. Long exposures can really add drama to an image, and turn a rather bland image into something far more dramatic. Long exposures are also great ways to eliminate distractions like tourists at popular spots. In a very long exposure they simply disappear. Would you believe that during this shot a man brought his dog down to drink about ten feet in front of the camera? The dog drank, moved around for about 20 seconds, and they left. No trace left in the image.

You can’t do that without a long exposure, and in that kind of light, you simply can’t create a long exposure without a neutral density (ND) filter. Think of ND filters as being sunglasses for your lens. In mild forms (like the ND8 included here), it just helps to reduce glare and can enrich colors. It can also help in using wide apertures in bright conditions. In more extreme forms, however, it cuts the light so significantly that you need a very long exposure period to produce a properly exposed image. During that long exposure a lot of dramatic things can happen. The images in this review in no way represent optimal conditions for LE (long exposure) work, and yet there is a lot of drama that has been introduced into them.

Aurora Aperture recognized the strengths of a rear gel filter system (small, no vignette, less chance of flare/artifacts) but also saw that the typical gel filters didn’t provide the optical quality necessary. So, they designed the PowerND, which replaces the standard gel filter holder (typically plastic) with the Aurora IR filter holder made from CNC aluminum alloy. They include the small screwdriver to do the quick swap and some extra little screws in case you lose a few. The screwdriver seems to have a bit of magnetizing that helps hold the little screws in place, and it made the job easy. I did it in less than 5 minutes, and that included taking a few photos during the process.

This new filter holder allows you to use Aurora Aperture’s high end PowerND filters, which are made from Gorilla Glass® like smartphone screens. Real, high end optical glass, with multi-layer nano coatings that are applied to filters for both light reduction and surface protection. These boast 128 layers of nano coating! The nano-coating provides protection against moisture, oil, dust (fingerprints), making them easy to clean. I would have liked to see a cleaning cloth included in the kit, actually, as it is always useful to have along. They are small, and, while you can grip them on the square end without any fingerprints actually interacting with the image, I still like to keep things clean.

The byproduct of this approach is impressive. There is absolutely no extra vignette introduced, and color casts are as low as I’ve ever seen. I’m hard pressed to say that any real color casts are introduced, which has not been my experience at all with ND filters in the past.

The Aurora IR filter set (PowerND) comes with a IR filter holder and four IR format ND filters in the rating of ND 8 (3 stops), ND64 (6 stops), ND 4000 (12 stops), and ND 65000 (16 stops). I would prefer an ND1000 to be included (10 stops), as that is often a sweet spot for my work. I would rather the ND65000 (which is too extreme to be used in many situations) be replaced by the ND 4000 as the upper end and the ND 1000 to be inserted into the kit. I find that the ND 4000 often requires 5 minute plus exposures at f/8 even in the middle of the day, and by my calculations it seems to behave more like a 13-14 stop reduction in light rather than 12. I’ve yet to find a situation where I felt I needed the more extreme ND 65000.

Shooting extremely long exposures will require you to enter bulb mode on your camera, and I find that a remote release like the Vello Shutterboss helps by allowing you to stray away from the camera and retain a digital readout on how long the exposure has gone.

It’s pretty remarkable how compact the PowerND kit is. The filter holder stays permanently mounted on the lens and doesn’t interfere with anything. The four filters come in a little case that is easy to bring along. The only thing to watch out for is the added risk of having your camera exposed while you swap filters on and off (this requires unmounting the lens), as you can introduce some dust or moisture if conditions are poor. I’ve personally had no problems, but I do try to be cautious. There is a little felt-like area on the IR Filter mount that allows you to slide the filters into place without scratching them.

I’m very impressed optically as well. There is little loss of detail or clarity (this photo and crop is a nearly 5 minute exposure using the ND 4000 filter).

There is next to no color casts. You can go from a fairly boring image to dramatic one by increasing the exposure time (just go to a “heavier” ND filter).

The PowerND kit from Aurora Aperture comes with the filter holder, the tools for the swap, and the four filters. It costs around $250 USD, which seems moderately expensive only because everything is so small. When you compare it to what it would cost to get an equivalent setup in a front filter holder, you realize that you would easily spend 2-3 times as much. Yes, gel filters are much cheaper, but they are also deliver dramatically poorer results. This system works very well!

Finally, here’s a few things to watch for for LE work in general. First, you need to learn to pick the right subjects for long exposure. Over a long period anything that moves will become blurred. You need to choose a static subject (rocks, buildings, etc…) that will be a constant while everything else moves around it. Secondly, hot pixels are a reality of LE work. These show up as red, for example, like in this photo:

They typically don’t last, but if they persist in other images, put the lens cap on a lens and take a 30 second exposure. It will just be black, but it will typically remap the pixels and eliminate the hot pixel issue.

Finally, the heavier ND filters (ND 4000 and ND 65000) will cut the light so much that you won’t be able to see to focus in either the viewfinder or the LCD screen, and autofocus won’t work. You have a couple of options. You can use hyperfocal techniques (look it up if you aren’t familiar), or focus with the ND8 or ND64 filter on (if the lens has autofocus it will probably still work, and, if it doesn’t, you can see enough still to focus in many lighting conditions). It’s better to do this with at least a filter on, however, as the ND 4000 and ND 65000 filters can cause some focus shift. Prefocus the lens, then carefully remove it, change the filter to the desired one, and then remount the lens. Long exposure work, like other specialized photography, requires some work to refine your technique, but the end results are well worth it! Aurora Aperture’s PowerND filter system is a great choice if you happen to own a lens that it is compatible with. Highly recommended!

More Photos from PowerND

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Keywords: Aurora Aperture, PowerND, Power ND, PowerND Review, Power ND Review, Dustin Abbott, Aurora ND Review, Canon 11-24mm, Irix 15mm, Irix 11mm, Canon 8-15mm, Long Exposure, Hands On, Filter Kit, Rear Filter, Video Test, Sample Photos, How To

Irix Edge Filters Review

Dustin Abbott

April 7th, 2019

Images of the Irix Edge Filters

Irix Circular Polarizing Filter

Irix ND1000 Filter

Irix Edge Light Pollution Filter

Price and Conclusion

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

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Aurora Aperture PowerND Rear Filter Kit Review

Dustin Abbott

September 23rd, 2018

More Photos from PowerND

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