Filters, which ones do I need?

I'm looking at getting some filters but I'm not sure what I want or need, the only one I have at the moment is a sky filter, is it worth paying more for one or are the cheaper ones ok?

Is it for film or digital?

With digital you don't need many filters because you can do so much in post processing.
Skylight and certainly UV filter will do very little for your photos.
A polarizer will have quite an effect, it can cut out haze to make colours more vibrant and "control" reflexions but with wide angle lenses you will notice that this effect change across your photo.
(variable) natural density (ND) and graduated natural density (GND) can also be useful on digital to control exposure.
Besides that, infrared filter might be fun but that are all the filters i can think off.

About the price.
Some cheap brands can be good but most of the time you get what you pay for it.
For the cheaper lenses cheaper filters might be okay but for the more expensive lenses or prime you will want some quality filter so that it doesn't downgrade the lens too much.

My advice: Get a decent polariser and some NDs/graduated NDs. You can produce most other effects digitally but those will allow you to slow shutter speeds (for the milky water effect), balance exposures when you have a bright sky but shadowy landscape, and of course flatten reflections.

I'm using digital, what decent brand names should I be looking for?

This was posted by a helpful member a while back.

http://www.lenstip.com/115.1-article-Polarizing_filters_test.html

If you take any landscape shots then a polariser is a must, I also own a set of NDgrads which I use only rarely, still useful to have though. If you fancy trying a few long exposures then a 10stop ND filter is a good idea, I have a B+W one although so far I've only used it a couple of times - note to self, must use that 10stop

Simon

B+W for me but Hoya is also very good and Hoya have several price ranges.
For GND you might want to look at square filter instead, i beleive hi-tech formatt is priced quite well.

I use the Hi-tech ones, I find them a little better than the previous Cokin filters I used - both still give a colour cast but the Hi-tech seem to be less so

I will have to take a trip to the local shop see what I can find, just picked up a Sigma 50mm EX DG Macro I take it I wouldn't need any sort of filter for macro work?

@Simonkit, just looked at your website, stunning pictures I would be happy if I could achieve results have as good

Although you've had a few replies already, it would help if you said why you want filters. Exposure, effects, what?

Also, what equipment are you using? Could be what you're looking for is built in already.

The more information you can give, the better the advice you'll receive

My advice is to wait until you know what you need, and understand why you need it/them. You'll then know what you need is not necessarily what you believe you want.

About the only filters you may need for digital nowadays are a circular polariser and maybe some ND grads or ND filters. If you believe that attaching a filter to the front of a lens protects it in some way, then UV filters might be useful.

Personally, I've never seen the sense in putting a £5 piece of glass on the front of a £500 - £1000 lens.

If you drop a lens, it's likely to get damaged, filter or no filter.

I agree. It's too tempting to go on a shopping spree and buy all these bits of glass you never use. Filters are there to overcome problems, such as needing to increase exposure times with ND filters. Wait and see if you run into these problems in the course of your general photography before getting the filter. Otherwise you end up either storing this stuff under your bed or - even worse - fitting your photography around the filters rather than the other way round ('ooh I've bought a 10-stop ND filter, now I must go and photograph a waterfall'!)

Thanks for the replies I guess I'm not 100% sure what I need but looking in to ND filters I think I will get one as when I'm taking landscapes most of the time the sky whites out, afaik this will stop that?

What camera are you using beermonster?

If a K5/Kr/Kx, you can expose the sky correctly and then correct the underexposed foreground in PP. This is more convenient than using a filter in most cases. (You can do this with any camera but the results are better with the newer sensors).

Alternatively you can bracket your exposures and merge the shots afterwards. That requires a tripod though.

The idea of an NDGRAD filter is to balance out the lighting in a shot, just as you mention...here's a link that explains it better than I can

http://www.whatdigitalcamera.com/techniques/camera-skills/mastering-your-camera/...


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