Filters

[wesleyfarnsworth]

I'm in the market for some filters. I'm shooting with a Nikon D80 and a Nikkor 18-135 lens. Can anyone

tell me some filters that are good to get. I know that I want to get a Polarizing Filter but I'm not sure what

else. Any ideas?

[User_276104]

Nice photos in your gallery, Wesley!

 

In this day & age a Circular Polarizer is the most useful filter, since most things can be mimicked on the computer. But if you're into getting everything at the moment of capture, a diffuser for portrait-type work and a warming filter (81A or Tiffen 812) are good. For film use I've had Tiffen 812 filters on my lenses for years, though I go "neutral" for digital.

[ron_hiner2]

I'd get a Canon 500D close up filter. That will turn any lens into a macro -- and the quality is amazingly good.

 

And, I should add that I'm squarely in the NO "UV/Haze" filter camp. Lenses are tough, and adding a piece of glass to protect the lens has a good probability of reducing the quality of the pictures.

 

This might be a threadjack... if so I apologize. I keep wondering if (in addition to a polarizer and a Canon 500D) in my filter kit, I should add whatever filter it is that converts incandescent to daylight.

 

When I'm pushing the limits of exposure under incandescent light -- like under incandescent stage lights for example, the red channel always blows out first. I'm wondering if I correct that with a filter, I'd get a better dynamic range (even though I'd loose a stop or so of light)

[joseph_wisniewski]

Yes, the "warming filter" is "good". It makes neat crunchy noises when stepped on. The shards can be used to cut your bonds if you've been kidnapped. Sizes 72mm and up make nice coasters.

 

But it should almost never be used on a Nikon digital. Nikons are basically "daylight balanced", and they tend to run high in the red channel (easier to blow out) and low in the blue channel (noisier) even in fairly neutral lighting conditions. So the warming filter simply makes this worse, it's even easier to blow the red channel, and the blue gets even noisier.

[joseph_wisniewski]

Ron, you are absolutely correct. The "cooling" blue filters (like the 80A) are very useful under incandescent or candle light, the decrease in blue channel noise and protection of the red channel from blowing out translates to about 2 stops better dynamic range than letting the camera do the incandescent white balance in software. This is often just enough to make interior architecture shots "work", where you would have needed to tinker with bracketed exposures combined with HDR techniques.

 

The cooling filter also improves the "crossovers", when the camera tries to convert incandescent light to a neutral white balance in software, it gets reds, greend, and blues right, but the "crossovers" between blue and green (aqua, mostly) and between red and green (yellow, orange, brown, skin, pretty much the most important things) tend to get a bit dodgy.

 

I've written about this before. I consider the 80A to be one of the "big six" essential filters.

 

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=29592761

[joseph_wisniewski]

Wesley,

 

There are six filters that I consider so useful for digital work that I refer to them as the "big six". The polarizer is number one. The cooling blue filter that Ron mentioned is number two. Eric's "diffuser" is number 4.

 

You might want to pay attention to number 3, the neodymium "enhancing" filter. I don't know where you are, but over here in south east Michigan, it's that filters "time", right now.

 

Here's the whole "big six" writeup.

 

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=29592761

 

And I'll give you a quick summary.

 

One - The Polarizer

 

Saturates color for anything covered with a transparent coating: skin has oil, leaves have cellulose and wax, cars have lacquer, insects have chitin. The blue of the sky is also polarized, and a polarizer can deepen the blue, and keep it from blowing out and rendering your sky a cloudless white or a drab gray.

 

Two - The 80A "Color Balancing" Filter

 

Most cameras have sensors that are "daylight balanced". They achieve their incandescent white balance by amplifying the blue channel over two full stops relative to the red channel. That adds a great deal of noise to the blue channel, so you see some pretty ugly shadows. It also makes it very easy to blow the red channel, especially when shooting red dominated subjects (human skin, cosmetics, and fall colors near dusk and dawn when the light is warm). The 80A prevents this, and gives you up to two stops more dynamic range.

 

Three – The Neodymium Enhancing Filter

 

The neodymium filter disrupts the nice "mimic the eye" characteristics of a sensor, and causes large-scale failures of observer metamerism. Neodymium (sometimes called “didymium”) does it in a way that is very pleasing in a landscape or fall color photograph: browns that would be identical in the picture (or to the eye) suddenly separate, with one turning red, another going yellow.

 

Four - The "soft focus" filter

 

Using a Gaussian blur can only make a good-looking soft focus effect on things that are not overexposed. The "prettiest" soft focusing is the glow surrounding blown highlights: candle flames, sparkling dew on flowers, the catch-lights in a woman’s eyes, the glint of jewelry. You can't get that right in PhotoShop.

 

A soft focus filter in front of the lens gives you a glow with size and density that are proportional to how “blown” the blown area really is. So the glow around candles, specular reflections, water drops, etc varies with the brightness and the size of the blown area. And the transition from blown to not-blown on skin is much more natural with a filter or lens than with a PS blur.

 

Five - The Neutral Density Filter

 

Many people like the look of a stream, waterfall, fountain, or brook with the water blurred into a soft "cotton candy" substance, flowing over rocks and plants. To do this, you have to shoot with a long exposure (anywhere from a second or two to a minute or two). In daylight, there's just too much light to do that, even at ISO 100 and f22, the longest exposure you can use is 1/50 sec. The "neutral density" lets you shoot much longer exposures. You can also use this technique to "blur away" all the moving people and vehicles in a street or architectural scene. Architectural photographers have been doing this for decades.

 

Six - The "Split Grad"

 

OK, the big “buzz” these days is HDR, “High Dynamic Range” techniques of taking multiple exposures, and combining ones that get the highlights right with others that get the shadow detail. But light that “scatters” in a lens (our old enemy “veiling flare”) can cause the highlights of a sunset to “fill in” and destroy the shadow details. The filter that is part clear and part neutral density can “hold back” the highlights so that they can’t damage our shadows.

 

There's also stuff in that article about reasons to avoid "protection" filters, teh use of lens hoods, the evils of the warming filter...

[liljuddakalilknyttphotogra]

Wesley,

 

you've got a lot of good answers here but I'll still hand you my selection. I find that there are really only three filters I need these days. I have brand new expensive filter which I'll probably not ever use. - - So be it. But, if you want filters there are really only three I'd ever recommend you.

 

1, from the film days.... either a UV or Skylight filter. These days, yes either a UV or a NC (No Color also referred to as a Neutral Color) filter. These are for "protection" etc. I use Nikon NC filters on my lenses & though this can be debated, it saved the threads on a lens of mine not all that long ago.

 

2, the most important filter I ever have - the Circular Polarizer. I love these filters. There are different kinds.... Regular Polarizers, Warming & color enhancing (from Singh Ray) - -get a regular Circular Polarizer. Buy a high quality one, do not go cheap on it. A good polarizer is a heaven send.

 

3, ND or Neutral Density filter. Another heaven sent filter. A wonderful way of controlling the sky etc. Personally I prefer the Cokin style filters for ND filters. Reason is simple, when using a graduated ND you can move the filter to match the sky in your shot. I find these wonderful & extremely helpful when I attempt landscape photography in the very bright & sunny Los Angeles.

 

Anything else you can create & add to whatever degree you wish etc in post. I'd personally rather have a clean shot & then add "effects" in post. In the film days we had to do it directly in camera - now we can do it in post.

 

Well, this is how I do it. I hope it may help. One final word.... Do not buy cheap filters, buy good quality ones. A bad filter is no fun as it will ruin shots for you.

 

JMHO

 

Lil :-)

[joseph_wisniewski]

Lil, a lens hood will do a better job "saving" your lens's filter threads (or the lens itself) than a filter will.

 

A hood has the ability to absorb energy by deforming temporarily (bouncing like a spring) or permanently (bending) instead of transmitting that energy to the lens. A filter is small and rigid and transmits pretty much the entire impact directly to the lens. (In the case of a side impact, a filter has the entire compression load capability of a glass disc to keep it from deforming).

 

Really good hoods (like the B+W screw in) are cheaper than really good filters (like your Nikon, or the B+W MRC).

 

It all boils down to the hood being better protection in most situations, as well as always enhancing images, while the filter always detracts from images (sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically).

[liljuddakalilknyttphotogra]

Joseph,

 

I have to humbly disagree with you. If you go back in the files here you will find the story of my flying 24-70mm f/2.8.

 

There you will find that I was carrying my 24-70mm on my D300 when it flew off. It was correctly mounted, but I find that the lens release button is far too sensitive & activates too easily. Slightest touch will release the lens. My D200 requires more force to release the lens.

 

You will also find that I was carrying my lens hood. The lens hood was reversed over the lens - - which actually probably saved the lens a lot when it flew 6 feet & landed on cement. It made the lens bounce & come to a rest on grass. But, the lens still hit the front & the lens cap flew off & the lens got a dent - - the dent ended up on the NC filter.

 

In my situation I strongly feel that the hood reversed saved the lens barrel - - so, personally I strongly feel the hood provided protection in its way & the NC filter provided it in another way.

 

Also, if you had taken time out to realize that I wrote "protection" - - you may well have realized that I meant that this is one of these issues different people have different opinions on.

 

I don't use them for protection - I use NC filters due to the high dust situation in which I live. But I do credit a $ 70.00 NC filter for saving the threads of my 24-70mm f/2.8 for future use with Polarizer & ND filters.

 

To each his or her own

 

Lil :-)

[User_3804048]

Sure, a lens hood will do a fine job of protection when you're actually out shooting. But, I unfortunately dropped my camera/lens about a foot and a half to the asphalt while getting it out of my case. The Hoya UV filter heroically sacrificed itself, denting the threads and breaking the glass while saving the lens. And, I had a lens cap on at the time. So yes, there are indeed times when the filter does offer protection.

[ShunCheung]

It looks like Wesley is in the military. In that case a protective UV/clear filter can be useful.

Other than that, a polarizer can be useful and perhaps a graduated neutral-density filter.

Last year I bought a 3-stop neutral-density for photographing waterfalls.

 

To get started, I would just get the clear filter and a polarizer. Everything else is getting quite specialized, especially for someone with a basic kit zoom.

[elyone]

One more the the ND filter.

 

I would also advise the following:

 

START with buying the polarizer (and ND) in 77mm size. Get step down rings for them. You will eventually upgrade to lenses with 77mm threads.

 

(Took me 6 years, but now I had to buy brand new 77mm filters when my 52mm's were still in great shape. I STILL don't have a 77mm lens, but the 77 fits on my 62 and 78mm threads. And when I get the wide angle lens that is on my list I will be ready!)

[elyone]

meant 72mm of course, not 78...

[ShunCheung]

Avi, when you put an oversized filter onto a lens, you are also preventing yourself from using a proper lens hood for that lens.

[joseph_wisniewski]

Donald - "Sure, a lens hood will do a fine job of protection when you're actually out shooting. But, I unfortunately dropped my camera/lens about a foot and a half to the asphalt while getting it out of my case. The Hoya UV filter heroically sacrificed itself,"

 

I pack my bag "for shooting". As many lenses as possible are carried with their hoods on and in the forward, ready position.

 

The most common way I pack my backpack is:

 

Nikon D3 attached to 70-200mm f2.8 lying down the long center compartment, hood mounted and in ready position.

 

D2X in rest of the center compartment, no lens.

 

(if I've got the 300mm f2.8 in the center compartment, the spare camera lives in a side compartment instead).

 

A compartment on the right set up to take a 24-70mm f2.8 lying down, hood mounted in ready position. A pad under the lens separates it from an SB-800 flash.

 

The rest of the compartments are set up for lenses vertical. The following lenses have their hoods on in ready position: 50mm f1.4, 85mm f1.4, 28mm PC, 14-24mm f2.8 (permanent hood, you don't get a choice), 45mm f2.8, 60mm f2.8, 20mm f2.8, 35mm f2.8 PC. (not all those lenses go on every mission).

 

If the 105mm f2.5 or 135mm f2.0 DC are with me, I rely on their built in lens hoods, so it's slide a hood forward as I extract a lens from the camera bag. I've fixed the hood on a dropped 105mm f2.5, and despite being a sliding lens, the impact at an angle "jammed" the hood, so that it bent on the impact side, absorbing the shock and protecting the lens. Apparently, it's near impossible to drop one of those lenses in a way that would fully retract the sliding hood and result in damage to the filter ring.

[joseph_wisniewski]

Avi - I guess we've got opposite viewpoints on this one. I'd have to go with Shun, there are great advantages (both for image quality and for protecting the lens) in using the hood that matches the lens.

 

Polarizers get used more when they're less of a pain to use. Polarizers are built with rotating mechanisms: if you try to screw a hood into a polarizer, half the time, the hood doesn't screw in far, then the polarizer starts to rotate, and you end up with a loosely mounted hood. And getting them off is often a pain.

 

It took me a while, but I eventually accumulated polarizers in 52mm, 62mm, and 77mm, the sizes I most frequently use. I even have two 77mm polarizers, so I can have a couple of the larger lenses ready to go with polarizers. Same with my 80A filters, two 77mm, one each of 52mm and 62mm.

 

Cool thing is I can add or remove a polarizer on most of my lenses without removing the stock lens hoods. The Nikon center-pinch lens caps will typically grip a filter well enough to unscrew it or screw it in. I can change filters without handling them directly...

 

The exceptions are the 135mm DC and the 20mm f2.8.

 

The 135mm, because it's a rather infrequently used lens, it doesn't get a 72mm polarizer, it gets used with a 77mm polarizer and a 72-77mm step-up. I already had the step-up, so this only required the purchase of a 77mm screw in telephoto metal B+W lens hood (really great quality in a hood).

 

The 20mm, because it vignettes with a standard polarizer or 80A, and I don't feel like laying in a complete set of slim filters for it, so I use a 62-77mm step-up ring, and standard 77mm filters, and a screw in lens hood.

[j_wilson2]

I would recommend carrying a Circular Polarizer, a set of Neutral Density filters, and a UV filter. I prefer a UV filter on the front of my lens at all times, for protection. Though a lens hood can protect the front element from an impact, the UV filter offers protection the lens hood cannot. Especially if shooting in dusty or dirty conditions, such as beach or desert, the UV filter will protect the front lens element from scratches and dust/sand buildup, reducing the need of cleaning the lens. This is especially true if caught in a dust storm or sudden wind burst. I'd rather spend 50 bucks replacing a damaged or scratched up UV filter than replacing a 500 dollar lens that's had it's coating scratched up and worn off.

[ben_s2]

<p>I'm intrigued by this Neodymium filter. Does anyone have any sample images? Maybe a with/without comparison? And does anyone know where to acquire one? Searching for "neodymium" or "didymium" on B&H and Adorama only gives me results for speakers and microphones, and mounting those in front of my camera is difficult.</p>