Yesterday Philip Bloom dropped a bombshell on the HDSLR world, announcing that he'd found a filter that claims to fix most aliasing problems on his 5d Mark II -- and that actually works. Earlier solutions have caused a loss of sharpness or didn't work at all, whereas this $385 optical filter seems to genuinely eliminate moire on most lenses. Check it out:
The filter goes in between the lens and the sensor (pictured) and can be removed for shooting stills (it will lead to a loss of sharpness in stills if left in). Unfortunately on the Mosaic website the online store is unavailable, so it's a badly-timed launch for them in terms of accepting pre-orders -- hopefully Dr. Dave Cubanski (Mosaic's engineer) can get it up and running soon. I'm certainly looking forward to getting one ASAP. Pair this with a Tessive Time Filter -- rented, mind you, as it runs $14k -- and you've just eliminated both aliasing AND rolling shutter, which are my top two complaints about HDSLRs (correction: the Tessive will not work with HDSLRs, because they can't sync with it. I knew this, but forgot... thanks, Chris and Darrell!)
Note that this is only for full-frame cameras at present -- for all intents and purposes making it 5D Mark II-exclusive. Dr. Cubanski is apparently working on an APS-C version for the 7D and presumably other Canon HDSLRs as well (T2i, T3i, 60D, etc).
Here's another pair of looks at the filter from cinematographer Glenn Przyborski:
Glen also has some resolution tests available for download (thanks, Alec).
Link: VAF-5D2 Optical Anti-Aliasing Filter - Mosaic Engineering
[via Philip Bloom]
