Would ND filter produce effect I see w/tinted glasses?

I'm seeing an interesting effect with my non-polarized auto-tinting glasses and I'm wondering if it's merely a neutral-density-filter effect or something else. If I could capture it in my photos, I would really be pleased.

Basically, I've noticed that when I'm wearing these glasses in sunlight bright enough to cause the lenses to darken, when I look at greens and blues there is a deep rich tonality. An example is that today I was on a high hill overlooking a distant landscape with clusters of fir trees and other lightly colored trees; the sky was blue with clouds. With my glasses, the greens and blues just seemed to contain such deep rich hues, but not really saturated. I also noted that, obviously, my pupils adjusted to the light coming in from behind the tinted lenses. Removing my glasses and allowing time for my eyes to adjust, the same scene just seemed way too bright and the hues were uninteresting.

Clearly, this isn't the same effect as using an ND filter for color (because you'd increase exposure to compensate, otherwise you'd underexpose).

So what effect am I seeing with these tinted lenses and how can I duplicate it with my photos? Anyone experience this? Just a guess, but it seems like it might involve increasing the contrast or saturation a bit and underexposing.

Your sunglasses probably have polarized lenses.

a neutral density filter, by definition, is neutral -- it reduces the light without adding any color. It lets you use a wider lens opening in bright light without changing to a slower film.

To get the effect you want you need to find a colored filter that matches your glasses and, perhaps, under expose a bit so the images are a titch darker and the colors denser.

Go to a hobby or science shop, buy some filters and play around.

I have used these type of glasses for many years and never noticed what you mentioned until the last pair I got several years ago. I was surprised to see a distinct warming. I didn't like this effect so don't use these glasses any longer.
One great fall day I went shooting fall color with my new Serengeti Drivers. I was surprised to find that the glasses distorted the color and the fall color wasn't as great as it appeared. After that I never wore the drivers again when shooting.


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It's like putting a welders mask on the front of your camera. They are useful down here in New Mexico to get a narrow depth of field.

I actually noticed something similar with an old pair of Ray Bans. They were polarized amber lenses. The polarization killed the reflections, darkened the sky, and the amber kind of acted like a warming filter. Overall, made everything a bit darker, too, of course.

I don't wear any kind of shades when I'm shooting color-- even the neutral grey shades I use when I'm cycling seem to distort things a bit. Colors just didn't come out how I thought they would.

Robert Ley said:

I have used these type of glasses for many years and never noticed what you mentioned until the last pair I got several years ago. I was surprised to see a distinct warming. I didn't like this effect so don't use these glasses any longer.
One great fall day I went shooting fall color with my new Serengeti Drivers. I was surprised to find that the glasses distorted the color and the fall color wasn't as great as it appeared. After that I never wore the drivers again when shooting.

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With these glasses, it's definitely not a warming effect. Supposedly the effect of wearing the glasses was supposed to be neutral (just reducing glare), but clearly it's doing more than that. What I see seems to have more contrast - greens and blues seem to have a darker hue as well. There's no polarizing effect at all.

Perhaps an optometrist can explain this.

My latest "neutral grey" sunglasses are surprisingly blue-green; not neutral in the least, and they have a tendency to "enhance" the blues and greens in a scene a bit. I still have an older pair of prescription sunglasses with Zeiss lenses, and they are very neutral. The latest are Hoya...

At any rate, what you are likely experiencing is a slight color filtration (which seems to be "warming" in your case, since the blues and greens are darkened), which you could approximate on color film with the right filter(s). Since film doesn't have the same spectral response as your eye, you may have to play around a bit to get your desired result, but it should be doable. Examine your glasses more carefully (maybe comparing to a real neutral density filter) and see if you can see some color. If so, use filters of that color to try to achieve your goal. If not, use your knowledge of color theory to choose filters to enhance certain parts of the spectrum (by removing other parts, of course) and experiment.

There are lots of "enhancing" filters available (mostly warming ones) as well as CC filters, etc.

And, as mentioned, underexposing a bit, or printing darker, may help too.

Have fun,

Doremus

There can be a combination of a number of effects

ND filters that are 'cheap' may not be that neutral with either C41 or E6 films they wont even be neutral with all mono films, mono films are not that 'neutral' anyway, Acros and Fomapan400, both way off.

Sunglasses may not be neutral either

If you fit an optimal hood to even a MC lens you will get more saturated colour. Try a catchers peaked cap.

If a scene is darker it will appear more saturated subjectively.

Was it Plato who mentioned the shadows at the back of the cave?

I had a situation years ago with prescription glasses that had a polarizing tint of sorts. I guess they would be referred to as a sunlight "graying" effect.
With this said I was using a high end polarizing filter while photographing water at the time. When I first looked through the viewfinder it appeared that half of the scene was polarized and the other half was completely clear with no dark area to it at all. It took me about 2 minutes to figure out the polarizations were canceling each other out. I basically just focused with the glasses on and took them off to set the circular polarizer to the correct effect......

I use gray polarized lenses for my sunglasses but they do cause problems with some camera viewfinders.