Having a bit of a head-scratcher with the new filter features in SceneKit with iOS9. To simplify the case as much as possible, if I add the line:
ship.filter
CIFilter are not supported by SceneKit when using Metal (which is the default on the device). See documentation of SCNNode / filters.
If you need CIFilter you have to explicitly request a GL based renderer (using InterfaceBuilder or SCNView's "renderingAPI" property).