Tutorial Tuesday--The Colonel Talks Filters

In my time on Steemit I've seen a great deal of amazing photography. I've also come across plenty of good photography that just needs a little extra something to take it to the next level. To me it feels rude to comment "Hey, this is good but if you do this it'd be better..." so I thought I'd write something explaining what might be helpful for some people, namely filters. For a landscape photographer filters are almost a necessity, they allow you to get right in-camera what would otherwise require considerable time and effort in Photoshop to duplicate (if you're even able to, some things are hard to fix). Now I'm no expert so more experienced photographers might not learn much from this but I thought I'd share my experiences with them so that those who are still learning (like me!) might discover something new.

Have you ever tried to get a shot but found that either the foreground was underexposed or the sky overexposed? Or wanted to shoot a waterfall and get the motion-blur effect or beach scene and get the water nice and smooth and even? Maybe you've had shots ruined by an overabundance of glare reflecting from surfaces? All these issues and many more can be remedied with the use of filters. The filters I'm going to be covering in this post are circular polarizers and neutral density filters (CPL and ND for short). While these are by no means all the filters out there, they're the ones I've found most useful/important.

Sprague Lake, taken using a circular polarizer

Circular Polarizers:

CPLs are basically polarized sunglasses for your camera. They come in a variety of sizes since they have to match the width of your lenses, so most likely you will need at least a couple (I have two for now). They are quite simple to use, you merely screw them onto the threads at the end of your lens or filter holder (at least the holders that have threads) and rotate the outer part of the filter to adjust the effects. They work by blocking polarized light (rotating the outer part adjusts how much is being blocked) which reduces glare and reflections and increases the color saturation of the image. Typically they reduce the light getting through by a stop or two, which allows you to leave the shutter open longer or use a wider aperture.

My circular polarizers

Neutral Density Filters:

ND filters are like tinted windows for your camera, they work by blocking all light to one degree or another (this is usually measured in how many stops worth of light is blocked). ND filters come in a wide variety, allowing you to customize your setup to a given situation.

Solid (and maybe a little dirty) ND filters

"Solid" ND filters block the same amount of light across the entire filter. These are what you use when you want to create the motion-blur effect in a waterfall photo or smooth out moving water. Any time you want to take a long exposure shot but lighting conditions would result in an overexposed image, just use one or more solid NDs to reduce the light getting through to the point you get the desired results.

"Graduated" ND filters block varying amounts of light in different parts of the filter. Typically one portion is clear and allows the full amount of light to get through while other portions filter it out to varying degrees. Some grads are only one strength (other than the clear portion) while others have multiple different strengths. Graduated NDs are further subdivided into "hard" and "soft", with hard ones having abrupt transitions between the different strengths while the soft ones gradually transition. Typically they block the most light at the upper edge of the filter but there are some where the strongest portion is lower down the filter, for when the brightest part of an image isn't at the top or bottom (think sun just above the horizon). Grads are a must when shooting in situations where you have a dark foreground and bright background (or vice versa), golden hour photography especially.

Graduated NDs, one on upper left is soft, other two are hard

Shots taken using filters are typically longer exposures so a tripod and filter holder are almost a necessity. You can improvise workarounds but they tend to leave a lot to be desired (you can handhold filters against the end of a lens but on a 30 second exposure that gets old fast). Filter holders allow you to "stack" multiple filters to cumulative effect. Most holders attach either directly or via an adapter ring to the threads on the end of a lens (the same as a CPL attaches to, this sometimes prevents the use of a CPL with ND filters/filter holders).

Cokin filter holder on my Nikon

A few other things to take note of, prices for filters and holders run the gamut from fairly inexpensive to absurdly so, in my experience you get what you pay for. (I bought a "cheap" Formatt Hitech 10 stop solid ND filter but it has such a bad color aberrations that its basically a $50 coaster) Also, wide angle lens usually need special adapters or variants of filters, otherwise you run into problems with vignetting (My CPL does that at 18mm on my kit lens but otherwise I haven't had problems with that). Besides being a necessity for hitchhiking the galaxy, a towel is also an important piece of equipment when using a filter holder. Depending on the design of the filter holder and the position of the sun, light can sometimes hit the filters in ways you don't want, draping a towel over it eliminates that issue.

Ok, so that's about all I have to share on this for now, leave me a comment if I left something out or you have anything to add!

(A stop is a doubling or halving of the light being allowed in)

I know its not Tuesday yet but I'm impatient and wanted to get this posted for @photomag's upcoming competition. Also, except for the first photo, all were taken with my smartphone, my apologies for the quality