Shoot photos like a pro
Filters can help your images stand out from the crowd
Any accessory, app or technique that can bene t your photography is fair game. Camera lters are favoured by expert landscape and scenic shooters, while softfocus and black mist lters are used by portrait photographers because modern lenses can be unatteringly sharp.
Most lter e ects can be emulated in editing software; there’s more control over the nal result, and e ects can be applied retrospectively. However, the process of crafting an image and using lters at the time of shooting is enjoyable and creative. If that appeals, it is worth investing in highquality products. Filters are often made from toughened optical glass so will survive a drop, while some brands use optical resin, which can be just as robust.
Through the looking glass
When it comes to reections, the polariser is often misunderstood and some users have high expectations. The fact is that the polariser can do a great job of cutting down reections but only in speci c situations. With reections o glass and water, you need to be shooting obliquely to the reecting surface. Shoot straight on or too obliquely and the polariser has no e ect. For more details, do a web search for Brewster’s angle, which is also known as the polarisation angle.
Glare control
Another string to the polariser’s bow is its ability to cut down glare, revealing detail and colour in the subject. Without a polariser, this rock face in Monument Valley, Arizona, lacked impact and the sky lacked depth, even though the shot was taken in a lovely late afternoon light. Adding a polariser and rotating it for the best e ect made a di erence to the sky but its biggest impact was eliminating glare o the sandstone, so now you can enjoy its colour and detail fully.
Watch for are
Shoot superlong exposures in daylight and you must make sure the extreme ND lter is correctly mounted. Square extreme ND lters have a foam gasket to prevent light leaks, but this must be correctly positioned to avoid internal reections. On DSLRs, light can reach the sensor via the view nder eyepiece so the eyepiece blind must be used – or a dark hat or similar placed over the view nder eyepiece.
When to go long
Dense neutral density lters of 10EV or more mean you can shoot exposures of many seconds or even minutes in bright sun. In this instance, a 10EV ND lter allowed a 30 secs at f/16 exposure instead of the normal 1/30 sec at f/16, but it’s a technique only worth using if there’s something moving in the scene, such as water, clouds or trac. You also need a decent tripod to keep the camera steady.
Watch out for spray
Shoot at the coast when there’s a breeze and there’s a good chance that your optics are getting covered with a very ne coating of salt spray. You should notice this while shooting, but if you are concentrating on what you are doing it can be easy to miss that the images you are taking are soft and lack contrast until it’s too late. Keep a micro bre lens cloth handy to wipe the lter or lens front and avoid smearing. After the shoot, wipe down the camera, tripod – and yourself.
Dealing with a strong sky
Shooting into the sun presents problems with lens are, metering and an overly bright sky – an ND graduated lter can help with the latter. In extreme lighting, you will need a strong ND grad and, here, a 3EV hard grad was used. Shooting directly into the sun can result in are and ghosting and using a lens hood will make no dierence, so make sure your lens front and lter are spotless. Higher-quality lters often perform better than cheaper ones in such situations.
Position the grad correctly
If you’re using an ND grad to control the contrast between the usually darker foreground and the bright sky, make sure the lter is correctly positioned so you are darkening the sky and not the subject. Move the lter up and down or adjust its angle while viewing the eect and use the camera’s depth of eld preview so you can see the eect at the aperture you’re using. Or simply take a shot and check the eect on the rear screen.