Help!!! Filters

Camera Professionals, Masters, Gurus

What is the most all around filter you use. Indoors, Outdoors, "Must-Have's!" Is there any particular brand? Help me!

Nothing indoors, CPL outdoors if needed.

CPL and ND for my outdoor photography.

Heh! First, I am of the class of photogs who does not use a UV/protective filter, so I will only give one bit of advice about them: if you must use one, only use the best out there. In fact, this is good advice for any filters, but especially if you feel the need to leave a UV filter on. Cheap filters will both cause general loss of IQ but are also guilty of causing flare (this comes up on POTN pretty frequently).

Now, you do have three types of filters that are actually useful. For all of them, it still holds true to get the best quality you can, but for these there is a special reason: some of the lower quality lenses tend to have a color cast which can wreak havoc on your images. So think of filters that cost say, $100USD or more -- it will be a good investment.

Of these, the common ones:

CPL (circular polarizing lenses) are good for things like cutting down on reflections and for increasing the saturation of some scenes. They have a way of being used and certain things they will do, and if you take the right approach can do really nice things. They can also be used as a "quick" light-touch neutral density filter...

NDs, or Neutral Density filters, have one use: they darken the scene, allowing you to use a slower shutter speed or wider aperture than you otherwise would need for a good exposure. These lenses come in a whole variety of "strengths" to make the effect as strong as needed. A common use of these lenses is to enable a relatively long exposure of moving water, such as waves, a stream or a waterfall. Also, think of a sunny day where you want to shoot something with a really wide aperture (like flowers with a real creamy background). In this case you can use an ND if your shutter speed "pegs" at the wide aperture.

As I said, CPLs can be a "quick" one-or-two stop ND filter in a pinch. I've done this with OK results.

The third main filter type is the GND, or Graduated Neutral Density filter. This is an old "standard" for a lot of landscape-type shooting because it can be real tough in outdoor scenes with a bright sky to properly expose the foreground areas without overexposing the sky. The DNG causes a gradual darkening of the area starting somewhere around half across the filter. The idea is to tone down the sky while allowing the foreground to be properly exposed.

Now, it is still true with digital photography that these are challenging scenes, but over the years it has become evident that digital images, especially Raw images, are quite easy to manipulate, and these highlight/shadow scenes are included, so many of your established landscape/fine are photogs no longer include a GND filter as a "must" for a digital photographer's kit. Another consideration for the DNG shot is the fact that the filter applies darkening across a straight line, meaning parts of the foreground get underexposed at the same time as the sky is being toned down.

Is there a big difference or what is the difference from the normal one to slim filter?

litratista wrote in post #10852129
Is there a big difference or what is the difference from the normal one to slim filter?

slim if you're putting it on UWA lens to avoid vignetting.

My problem with a GND filter...

1. I will almost always have a CPL on my lens for outdoor photography. Often the CPL will darken the skies enough for the sensor to register the entire image without burning out the sky.

2. I don't like to double up on my filters such as CPL + GND.

3. Round GND filters have the cut-off line straight across the center of the glass. This will force you to either place your horizon through the center of the image (boring-boring) or to severely crop the image (inefficient). As a result, I began to shoot with square GND filters which solved the middle horizon line problem but which caused other problems such as:

4. Needing to remove the lens hood for the shot while holding the square filter and or removing the lens hood AND attaching a square filter holder.

5. The horizon, except for seascapes, is seldon straight. Even when you use a GND with a soft cut-off, the look is sometimes artificial.

6. The GND is just one more darn accessory to buy, carry and keep track of...

7. Shooting several frames with exposure bracketing and compositing them into an HDR image is often as good, if not a better way to register the extreme variance in exposure between the sky and foreground. As the compositing ability of various editing programs improve, a photographer can most often combine three hand-held exposures into a quite decent HDR image. This is especially true when the photographer has selected auto exposure bracketing in the three shot burst sequence Canon cameras are capable of doing.

OH, HOW I WISH CANON HAD A FIVE SHOT AEB CAPABILITY...

RPCrowe wrote in post #10853588
OH, HOW I WISH CANON HAD A FIVE SHOT AEB CAPABILITY...

Yup

RPCrowe wrote in post #10853588
OH, HOW I WISH CANON HAD A FIVE SHOT AEB CAPABILITY...

That would not be nearly as good as a digital camera with a twenty-stop latitude. THAT is what I would like.

For the newbies, this dream means that the camera could record detail in objects in the scene with a twenty-stop difference in brightness. That's over a million-to-one brightness ratio. That I could be quite happy with.