Essential filters
I’ve never used filters but have been told at my camera club that I should consider them. Which would you regard as essential, and why? Colin Hawker
This is one of the most popular questions in my inbox, Colin.
To some degree, it’s a matter of taste, but these days I tend to look at it like this: what can filters do that I can’t replicate at the image editing stage? The answers I come back to again and again are either the polarising filter or a straight ND filter. Then I look at my usage of the two and for me at least, it’s the polariser that comes out on top.
Let’s look at what a polariser can help us with. For starters, they cut down glare. This is very useful in lots of different shooting situations. A polariser will help to remove reflections from glass and water. Admittedly you don’t always want to remove reflections but they can give you that option when you do. They also saturate colours and reduce haziness in the atmosphere – although, I confess, these things can be replicated to some degree in software but it’s good to get it right from the start if possible. For its general ability to help in lots of situations, it is the polariser that gets my vote as the ‘most useful’ filter these days.
I have others in my kit bag, such as those straight NDs and even the ND grads, but I have some Hoya Revo circular polarisers to screw directly onto some lenses and a drop-in one for my 300mm.