The other day, I had a conversation with a friend who told me all about how AI has been causing havoc in her life. Essentially, it acted like an untrained intern who doesn’t know any better but is given an absurd amount of responsibility. So the AI started to do things that my friend didn’t want to do. Make no mistake, AI is scaring everyone these days — especially as so many are giving up their humanity in the smallest of ways. But today, PolarPro is introducing something that I’m probably going to call my favorite lens filter of 2025. It’s called the PolarPro Warp filter. By far, one of the coolest filters I’ve ever tested. It even feels really well built in every single way.
This review may sound like it was written by an AI, but instead, it’s written by someone who has delved deeper into the side of humanity beyond normal vernacular — and I refuse to be a square cog put into a smaller circular hole.
So let’s get a bit philosophical.
In my own personal meditations, I’ve done much reading about the idea of chaos vs. order. Two of my friends call their youngest kitten very chaotic. But in contrast, I see the kitten as mischievous. Mischief is a form of chaos that’s ultimately harmless. That brings me to my thoughts on the new PolarPro Warp Filter. Other brands have done their take on warp filters — but PolarPro makes one of the best-built options I’ve ever seen or used. And relating to the idea of mischief vs. chaos, it’s mischief for photographers and chaos for generative AI.
This, my friends, is exactly what we want and need in 2025.
In ode to the poet Brenna Twohy, watching Generative AI and billion-dollar companies fueled by unethical tech-bro culture is like watching all of the world’s honey disappear into a bee’s mouth. And if you look at the way that software companies and camera manufacturers are making us use cameras and how they think photography should be super sterile, you’ll understand how my river of thought is flowing.
While the camera manufacturers are all about telling photographers to make images that are as pasteurized as American milk and eggs, special filters like this deliver what I call the balance. In most of Western Culture, we fight the idea of darkness. But the truth is that if the light eliminated all of the darkness, we wouldn’t be able to see the light anymore. It’s human nature to hyperfocus on the differences — at least if you’re a flavor of the OCD Skittles bag of life. But the truth is that we can be very happy with our abundance of light, and allow the little bit of what we believe the dark side to live.
That’s a longer way of saying that we’ve been letting engineers tell us what makes for good photography. Just think: back in the film days, there were tons of different looks you could get just by using a different film. But these days, all the camera sensors are usually made by either Sony or Canon. And the variety is something that we’re forced to do ourselves with post-production or loading profiles into the camera.
Traditional photographers would see the pasteurized output of modern cameras as light, whereas this filter introduces darkness and “problems” to the image quality.
But balance, and therefore this darkness, is needed in all things, not just your diet.
Using the PolarPro Warp filter is, quite honestly, chaotic as hell. You can peer into the center and see some semblance of order. But it is ultimately surrounded by all sorts of weirdness. And as you move the camera lens around, that weirdness shifts accordingly. Most importantly, there is no rhyme or reason to it. It is what it is — and that’s what I love about it so much. As you point the PolarPro Warp filter towards lights, those lights will either warp, become circular, or turn into something that looks like you’re using an anamorphic lens.
Ultimately, this becomes a lens filter that I want to use all the time and combine with other filters. Because of the prismatic design of the PolarPro Warp filter, you have to have it be the outermost filter. For example, I’d use GlimmerGlass on my Leica SL lenses, and then I’d stack the PolarPro Warp filter on that.
Ultimately, this lens filter is for any photographer who is sick of conforming to what social media and algorithms are telling them to make. We’re giving the PolarPro Warp filter 5 out of 5 stars. On top of that, we’re awarding it our Editor’s Choice rating.
It’s available for around $50 to $150, depending on your lens filter size.
