Back in the days when I shot film filters were an indispensable part of my technique that enabled me to control the light, balance dynamic range, and give a little extra snap to every image. Well guess what? Fast forward to the digital age and the same still holds true.
It’s easy to get caught in the trap of saying “I’ll just fix it in post”, but the truth is filters are every bit as important in the digital age as they were in the days of film. Photography after all is about shaping and controlling light, and whether your image is preserved in celluloid or pixels there is still no substitute for capturing the best possible image up front.
Two filters that I consider essential are the graduated neutral density (GND) and the polarizer. The GND is available in several densities with both hard and soft transitions allowing you to ideally balance the contrast in the scene. This magical filter works best for landscapes where the foreground is in shadow and the background has direct light. Through the viewfinder washed out clouds suddenly become more defined and foreground subjects emerge from the shadows and retain their natural color. Positioning the filter takes a little practice so that the transition seamlessly blends into the horizon and is not obvious in the final image.
The polarizing filter blocks scattered light rays to remove reflections from water and foliage, and definitely spends more time on the front of my lens than any other. By turning the filter you can control the amount of polarized light reaching the lens, which has the added benefit of saturating colors, darkening skies and increasing overall contrast. In addition, the polarizer works like a neutral density filter to slow exposure times allowing for a silky effect when shooting flowing water.
There are many other excellent filters available, but these two are a great starting point for creating more dynamic images and saving considerable time at the computer.
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What you say is true for GND filters if you have a semi or level horizon. But what about in the Mts? Using soft GND will still burn some of the tops of the Mts down. Hence that is why as you know so many people are leaving the GND filters behind and blending Mt images. I for one would love to use Soft GND filters in the Mts and not have to do a selection in post and dodge the Mt peaks back. Especially when blending images that have a lot of motion as in rivers, trees, leaves, etc…..Your thoughts
Thanks for your comment, Tom. Blending images and luminosity masks are certainly viable options that many turn to today, but my emphasis is always on getting the shot in-camera. There are times when the graduated filters aren’t practical as you mention, although for a majority of landscape applications they work quite well.
Russ…help me out here pls. If you use a soft grad in the Mts, will you not burn down the peaks still? How do you get around this as I really prefer not to blend in post…thanks
Tom, the image here is an example of using a soft GND in a mountain scene. Although I prefer to use filters whenever possible there are times when it isn’t feasible or when the application needs fine tuning in post. The dodge and burn tools in Lightroom when working on RAW files are very powerful and subtle in making these adjustments.