Simon! I too enjoy night photography, it just never dawned on me to use this filter at night! Looked at your link, and again some of these effects are cool looking at night! Not sure what you mean when you say they are OTT? Do you mean odd? Or does that mean over the top? I went to the camera store today and bought into the Cokin filter system, which I find a bit odd. Any of the filters I had ever used before were the screw on kind. No special rings or adapters like with this system. Now for the star filter, they came in 2,4,8 and 16 the numbers do not refer to the size of the star but rather the number of points on the star, I thought the 8 point star looked sharp and purchased one. The size of the star is determined soley by the brightness of the light source alone, the aperature, ISO and shutter speed have nothing to do with the size star produced. I also purchased a circular polarizer, I think I will get a lot of use out of this filter, judging by the results I saw produced with this filter. I looked at the rainbow filter as well, the results they showed produced with it looked "hokey" at best. So I am going to hold off getting one of these. I also looked at the sunset filter, hmmmm wasn't impressed with it either, I am thinking on purchasing a red graduated filter instead, or maybe a creative filter that goes from red to yellow or something, will let you know what I decide what to do. I also liked the effects of the diffused filter for portraits. Dreamy effects to say the least! Brenda :)