The Filters We Use

n the 80’s I was a slide shooter and a filter junkie. Filters were a fun and affordable way to play with the computer.

Unfiltered

With Tiffen 812 filter

Unfiltered

The question I often hear is “do you still use lens filters”. The answer is yes, because there still is no substitute for capturing the image properly.

I sometimes refer to the polarizer as a postcard filter. Ever notice the postcards sold of places you are visiting, the images on the postcards have more brilliant colors and more drama than in real life. A polarizer increases the saturation or richness of the colors, adding its own postcard like magic. Notice the magic when used on a sky with white puffy clouds, as demonstrated above.

As magical as polarizers can be, I don’t use them as much as I once did. When using a polarizer I think less is more. The degree of polarization is controllable. The filter rotates in its mount, the rotation affecting the amount of polarization. I have ruined more than one picture from over use. Too much polarization can produce skies that are overly dark. Special caution must be exercised when using super-wide angle lenses, watch for uneven polarization of the sky from the left side of the image to the right side, and use a “thin” model to prevent vignetting. Our Polarizer brand of choice is B+W.

Other filters in our bag are Neutral Density Graduates by Cokin. Cokin calls these Gradual Grey 1 and 2. The Gradual Grey 2 is the darker and the one we find more useful. These filters are used to equalize a scene with an extreme brightness difference between two areas of the picture. The typically example is the foreground in the shade and the background in the sun. Cameras cannot record detail in both. The solution is to reduce just the bright part of the picture by placing the gray part of the filter over the bright area, leaving the clear part of the filter over the darker areas.

Our favorite and most used filter is the Tiffen 812. We like it so much in fact that all of our lenses has it’s own. So what is an 812 filter? It is a warming filter somewhat like the 81 series, however where as an 81 series adds yellowish warmth, the Tiffen 812 adds reddish warmth. It is a must have for shooting the red rock country of the American Southwest. The Tiffen 812 is also a good choice for flash pictures of people. The filter adds natural warmth to the skin tones.

The second filter we use is the polarizer. This filter darkens a blue sky and removes reflections from shiny surfaces such as grass, leaves, and flowers. The color of a flower is usually masked by a light sheen, a white light. Remove that white light by using a polarizer, and the true color of the flower is seen. The same effect can be achieved on surfaces such as glass, water, and sheet metal.

With Polarizer

In the example above the left image was taken by metering the light for the bottom half of the scene. The result is the reflection looks good but the top half of the picture is too bright. The right image was taken with the same light settings but added the ND Graduate with the grey over the top of the picture.

These are the filters we use for landscape photography. There are however dozens of other filters, they are lots of fun and still affordable.

Enjoy,

Mike and Tammy Rice

Unfiltered

With Cokin Gradual Grey 2