Free Photography Tips for Beginners
Photography Filters
Love 'em or hate 'em, there's no denying that at times they can be an indispensable tool for any photographer ,with a virtually endless array of filters to choose from. Probably the most common filter that most photographers will have on there lens is a UV filter. Basically UV filters are supposed to block UV rays , which can cause your color photographs to have a bluish hue about them. The other reason people use this filter is as protective filter for the lens.
For black and white photography I use a yellow filter to increase the contrast. There are four kinds red, orange, yellow and green. The red filter is the strongest and offers the greatest degree of contrast. This is ideal for landscapes with lots of sky and clouds.
I sometimes use a Polarizing filter with both color and black and white to reduce glare and reflection. Polarizers also tend to give greater color saturation to the photograph , which may or may not be to your liking. If the colors tend to be too saturated or blue consider using it in conjunction with a warming filter.
The other filter I've found handy is an ND (Neutral Density) filter. These filters come in varying strength depending on how much light you want to block. I have an ND8 filter which absorbs the equivalent of 3 stops of light. This works well when you want to want create a blur effect on a sunny day. e.g. a soft waterfall effect.
I use Cokin filters because of their ease of use. With Cokin you don't need to buy the same filter 3 or four times to fill all your different lenses , you just need to buy different rings to fit into your lens and attach your Cokin holder which will allow you to use three different filters at the same time if you want to create some weird effects.
In closing it should be said that as we're now living in the digital age , most of the effects you can get from using a filter can also be obtained from using Photoshop. The Choice is yours!
