Enhancing Filter

I'm new at photography and have a Nikkor 80-200 f4 (62mm) lens which

I thinking about buying some filters for. I'm definetly buying a

polarizer, and I'm thinking about an enhancer? Any other suggestions

(especially for b&w)?

 

 

Thanks

If you're talking B&W film I'd recommend a K2 (yellow 8 or15) and possibly an orange or

red for landscapes. If you do portraits look into a yellow-green as with certain emulsions it

is kinder to skintones/lips.

You certainly don't need an enhancer for b&w. 90% or more of my b&w photographs are made without filters, and its much more important to develop the ability to visualise the final print and adopt an imaginative approach to your photography. For colour work, my own experience is that enhancers ruin more photographs than they improve- they are amongst the least subtle and natural things you can put on a lens.

Hey, Joe -- a polarizer is a great start because you can use it with color film to darken the blue skies and take reflections off of surfaces. Even leaves of green trees have lots of reflections on them that you dont' realize are there, so using a polarizer will result in more saturated colors. ALSO, this is a good filter for B&W film because you can use it for basically the same reason people use yellow and orange filters in B&W...darkening the blue sky/increasing cloud contrast. So I would just start with that filter, and I would recommend shooting the exact same scene with no polarizer and with different levels of polarization so you can look at the results later and really understand how the polarizer is changing things.

I had purchased an enhancing filter (Tiffen) many years ago. i tried it in the red rocks in the SW USA, but wasn't pleased with the magenta cast. It did better on fall foliage, though a polarizer was just as effective. A few years ago, while crossing a stream, I slipped and fell on my camera bag breaking the filter (and a couple other things). I never replaced it.

Hi Joe, my comments are similar to Alex's. I bought an enhancing filter for fall foilage imagages, used it once and did not like the results. For my color slide photography, I use a warming filter all the time, either an 81A, 81B or 81C, on my regular lenses. I prefer b+w filters and use the KR 1.5 and the KR 3.0. The first is close to an 81A and the second is close to an 81C. I also have a polarizer by Singh Ray that fits the Cokin P system. With this system and one polarizer, I use it on my Nikon lenses that are 52mm, 62mm and 77mm. Why buy three polarizers when one will do the job? Just buy three Cokin P adapter rings and one really good polarizer. This same advice applies to any other specialized filter, like graduated neutral density filters that fit the Cokin P system. I use the polarizer most of the time to remove reflections as opposed to darkening already blue skies. I do not do B& W, so others will have to respond. Another Joe smith

Many years ago I thought it necessary to have every filter available for both B&W and color. Over the years I learned that a polarizer, a med yellow and sometimes a light green would do for 99% of the pics I made. Further, I would venture that even for B&W have used filters a very small percentage of the times. Learn to make the most of the len's basic perforance and you will eventually confine your filters to only a minimal number of situations.

I have and use (rarely) an enhancing filter. Very expensive of course and even used. I found when fall foliage was past prime and more coppery than red it really pumped things up. Other than that frankly it has been a white elephant.