Hoya Star 8 Special Effect Filter

Hoya Star 8 Special Effect Filter

I bought a 55mm Hoya Star 8 Filter. This is a special effects filter that when you take a photo through it you will get an eight pointed star burst. These filters usually cost about £25 but I bought a used one on Ebay for £2.99 – (99p + £2 postage). They are quite common at this price, there isn’t a lot of demand for them and they are quite a specialised filter. The one I bought is in mint condition and looks like it has hardly been used. You can buy a generic non branded one on Ebay new for this price as well but with filters I wouldn't recommend buying cheap ones.

The filter this pattern etched into it and it’s these which cause the stars to appear.

Here are two shots taken with and without the filter.

These photograhps were taken with a light just out of the frame, the star effects are coming from where the light was reflected out towards the camera. Taken on my Sony A450 camera with the 18-55 kit lens. I will take some more photos with this filter attached and post them to here, I think a cityscape with this filter would be interesting.