VDF: "Camera Filters Are A Big Deal"

[renodesertfox]

Howdy Campateers,
Before I go camping this raining weekend in the desert there is one item that I need to get off my chest...it's not about big fancy dslrs but about filters. Interested, read on. If not move along and let someone else learn, by cracky!

The selection of the proper filter is actually far more important than any choice of lens or camera.

I'm big on filters. The filter has a large and real effect on your image. Lens brand or sharpness does not.

Yes, you need filters even with your digital camera and Photoshop. Polarizers and grad filters need to be used before the lens and are not well, if at all, simulatable electronically. Digital cameras are excused from most of the color conversion filters, since you dial these in as white balance settings. I still use a mild warming filter (81A) on all my digital cameras since I prefer the look I get, even with the WB adjusted warm.

The more you learn about photography the more you'll also learn that artificial filters and manipulation are required to make a natural looking image. Ansel Adams realized that human perception and the photographic processes are quite different. Therefore one needs to use a lot of filtration, manipulation and burning and dodging to compensate for the human eye and brain's image processing to create an image on paper that looks natural. (You can read this in his books.) This is why most snapshots don't look like the original scene. Artificial processes and image manipulation are needed to make a photograph look natural.

Armchair photographers like to play a stupid game that prohibits anything creative and requires they just play forensic photographers blindly Xeroxing nature without filters. I only judge photos by the final image, not the process. Sadly these folks get images that are both dull and unnatural.

I'm not trying to reproduce nature. I encourage people to be creative. I personally use any sort of artificial anything I can to create the look I want. I'm expressing my imagination, not trying to duplicate reality.

That said, the best images come when nature is at her best, and at those times she needs no enhancement. The good images I show on this website are mostly made without filters. I usually use filters when the light is not perfect to pump it up. Photos made during epic light are much better than those made under lesser light with filters attempting to compensate.

When the light is bad I try to salvage things with filters. These are the photos that usually make it to the trash. Yes, they are much better than the unfiltered photos made under those conditions, but no, they are not the more spectacular images I actually show people.

Ansel Adams has nothing to worry about. Filters and Photoshop still can't replace being in the right place at the right time.

Many ask if I use filters to get the great colors you see in my photo albums. Usually I don't. I use filters to try to make good light out of bad light, and the results are better than without filters, but not as good as having good light to begin with.

I also make a point of seeking out wild colors, using Fuji Velvia slide film to capture the wildness, and then make sure that I'm in the right place at the right time. It sounds simple, but few people do it. Yes, I still shoot film too!

If you shoot print film you just can't get these vivid colors on paper. Heck, try hitting the PRINT button on your browser and note how vivid colors on your screen fade on paper.

Okay I'm being blunt but if you read this over a couple of times good photography can come from a simple P&S as well as a fancy Nikon or Cannon or any other brand out there! Get Camping! So you can take more photos! If you care to comment please do if you care to challenge please do...if you care to learn, please do and if you care to say anything the first step is to click on the reply button. I'm going camping!

[Bigdog57]

I learned to appreciate filters early on. I got my first SLR camera - an old Pentax K1000 "Manual Everything" - just about the time Mount Pinatubo in The Philipines blew it's top. It put so much crap into the atmosphere that the classic blue sky was turned dull grayish. It did give some killer sunsets though.....
But, to get good skies in our pics, we had to use filters.
I also used the polarizers to cut glare and reflections.
I found that the amber filter really makes vegetation 'pop'!

Now with digital photography, we can do our 'effects' and improvements in the computer. Still, it makes me feel 'lazy'....

But I found a problem when limited to using the idiots at Wally Mart or other such 'photo developers' to process film. I once tried some film - I disremember the name now - that gave a 'sepia' quality but was to be processed as standard 'color film process'. The danged fools kept handing it back unprocessed saying it was "Black&White" film. Even when I specifically told them to process as color, they wouldn't. Fools.
Turned me off photography for a few years.

[renodesertfox]

What film you had was Ilford Film, probably XP1 or XP4...b/w film that has to be processed in C-41 which is the developer generally used to process color negative film. Your "danged" fools were told not to process it. But they could have and no ill effects would have occurred but the management of Walmart is very strict and and cross-over products such as Ilford's B/W film are treated as such. If you had found a private lab in your area that handled film...maybe in a large city then you wouldn't have had that problem. Too bad! Ilford film is a great product!

Filters really do add to a person's photos. Sometimes though you might have to put it on a tripod or you can just increase your ISO to 1500 if you have that option and hand-hold it. But a tripod is should be treated like a good girlfriend. And if you want you can always name it Sarah or Jill. Anyway a tripod is like a girlfriend in that you can count on her to give you great support... in whatever you put your trust in her to do! She will hold your camera steady and you can go steady with her is for as long as you decide to keep her around. She won't kick you out of your own home for drinking too much beer, either! Or give your any lip when you cuss her out.:D

[Bigdog57]

"Ilford"! Yep, that was it.

I do have a good steady tripod - still use it occasionally, mostly for my shooting Chrony for load development.

[renodesertfox]

More Photo Help Using Grads

Howdy Campateers,
Split Graduated Neutral Density Filters or just "grads" is another tool in the photographer's camera bag to control his environment to get great results.

Grad filters have been a pro secret for ages.

Grads are used to control light that gets too bright in one part of the picture, like the sky.

Grads are important. Even with digital, I won't leave home without both a grad and a polarizing filter.

Grads give better results than screwing with HDR(advanced technique), and give you those results immediately in-camera. In fact, you can see what you're doing through your camera's viewfinder as you move the filter around!

A grad filter is a clear filter that becomes gray on the top. Your car windshield probably does the same thing at the top, although this was more popular on cars in years past.

"Grad" is short for graduated neutral-density filter, which is also known as a gradated neutral-density filter. They are all the same thing: gray on top, clear on the bottom.

"Neutral Density" or "ND" is how geeks say "gray."

Grads work because you rotate them so the gray part covers the part of the image you want to darken.

Grads also allow you to lighten parts of the image, like the foreground above. Grads lighten dark parts of the image because you use more overall exposure when the overly bright parts are dimmed through the gray part of the filter.
To me camping is more fun with a camera recording where you've been and what you've seen. Practicing with filters often times gets great rewards. So much to chat about...hunting, fishing, camping, photography! Whew, more soon!