Cross Screen / Starburst fitlers

[astroNikon]

Anyone have any experience and examples of cross screen filters - those filters that give nice star patterns on lights ?

How do they compare to just pinching the aperture f/22ish ?

Sun shots, night time city shots, star shots ?
Have you stacked them on other filters such as NDs ?

Any info would be greatly appreciated
Thanks

 

[KmH]

Stopping down to f/22 may cause a loss of focus sharpness due to diffraction.
Using a cross screen filter precludes that.

When stacking filters be wary of vignetting.

 

[astroNikon]

I decided to take the plunge and get a B+W 8 point cross screen from Adorama.


If one was using a Big Stopper type 10x filter with this. Should the cross screen be stacked on the outside, or the inside ???
I would think the outside ...

I've got some more insane ideas of night cityscapes with car trails and such ...

 

[TCampbell]

It was very common to use these for weddings (because it turns all candles into 4 point stars (btw, we used the 4 point - rotated to create diagonal "X" diffraction spikes on the candles.) Stopping down inside a church (which is already dark when wide open) is impractical for obvious reasons -- so filters are the clear choice here.

You can also do this with Photoshop filters but from the images in which someone showed me the results of software filters I never felt they were nearly as good as the real filter.

 

[astroNikon]

Well that was a neat first outing with a 8x, at night.

 

[IzzieK]

I have one for each camera from the old film days...now my cameras have it, if it needs it.