Ok so I have three filters for my new camera and I kinda have a basic understanding but I was hoping for someone to explain them more and maybe give examples of when to use them? They are
1.Uv filter
2. Flourescent
3.Polarizer 1. A UV filter serves primarily as a lens protector. It's totally transparent to visible light, so it has no effect on the color balance of the image. When used with film, it could sometimes have the effect of removing a blue cast from an image. Digital normally has no UV sensitivity, though, so it really does nothing other than protect the lens.
2. A fluorescent filter is used with color film to correct for the color cast of fluorescent lighting and make the photos taken under fluorescent look more neutral. With digital, it really serves no purpose, since you can adjust this in camera using the white balance function.
3. A polarizer has two primary functions in photography. The first is to remove reflections from non-metallic surfaces(windows, water, etc.). The second is that it can be used in certain scenes to increase color saturation. In particular, it will darken a blue sky, and remove reflections from green foliage to make it appear more green. The UV filter helps to remove some of the haze that diminishes the color in your photos. Leave it on all the time as it's also a great protection for you expensive lens.
The Florescent filter is used to change pictures taken under inddor florescent lighting to more natural colors. This is usually not needed as most digital cameras can adjust for this automatically or via the camera menu.
The Polarizer is a great special-use filter. It had the same effect that polaroid sunglasses have. The Polarizer rotates to remove glare from glass or water. (That's why polaroid glasses are so popular with fishermen!) In an SLR, you'd watch the effect of the filter as you rotate it, until you found just the effect you like. On a non SLR camera, it's a guessing game and not recommended.
Hope this helps. If you have any more questions, please just ask. ben has covered it nicely!
i will add,
leave the UV on all the time to protect the frount element of your lens
as Doug says white bakance for fluro (green cast) the fluro filter should be pink and say FL on it, used for daylight film under fluros
polariser make sure its circular not linear (for your Digi), use it to make skys more blue and what doug said - glare, reflections
a Personally, I'd say the first place to start for effects is a polarizing filter. You want a "circular" polarizer. Some people use a skylight or UV filter to protect the front glass of the lens, but you can also buy high quality plano glass filters for that purpose. Whatever you do, at least buy a decent quality filter instead of trying to get off cheap.
As far as all the rest, you can do this in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Okay, I don't want to argue with anyone about how it's better to use the real filter, but our asker can try a few in Photoshop (etc) "for free" and see which ones will be the most useful.
Or, go here http://www.thkphoto.com/products/hoya/in... and see what you can learn.
Or here http://www.tiffen.com/tiffen_filters.htm... Tiffen makes a kit to get you started on filters, if you think you want more than one. They include a polarizer, a UV filter and a warming filter. B&H Photo and many other places sell this kit.
Many people use a UV filter simply to protect the front element of their lens from damage. "UV filters absorb ultraviolet rays which often make outdoor photos hazy or indistinct." (from: http://www.thkphoto.com/products/hoya/gf... )
We get this question often enough that I decided to upload a sample to Flickr showing the same subject taken with and without a UV filter. Download the image, cut a small section out of the top half and drag it to the same section in the bottom half and see what you think. The photos were taken about 15 seconds apart in subdued sunlight, so I think the lighting was virtually identical for each. There was no post-processing at all so you can make a fair comparison. I will not comment any further and let you decide for yourself if there is any color shift.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04...
The picture was taken with a Nikon D200 at ISO 100 with the Nikon 18-200 VR lens @ 112 mm at f/5.3.
Buy a name brand like Hoya or Tiffen. Don't get cheap junk to put on the front of your fine lens. |
