Photography / Camera chat thread.

Originally Posted by keith_d

You looks froo da ole, an presses da buttun wen it looks nise. Den da pixies inside paints a pitcher for ya. Too dark or too lite an dey can't paint so good.

OK??

peeing myself

Originally Posted by bluefishman

peeing myself

There's a treatment for that you know...

[keith_d]

Originally Posted by Milky Bar Kid

At the end of the day, it's like any other technology, it needs the user input to get results...

Yep - I've heard it said that you could give a top photographer a compact camera and they would still produce awesome pictures. Conversely you can give me a posh camera in an underwater housing and I'll still produce pictures of fish tails.

A lot of serious photographers are into pre-visualisation, where they first decide what their image will look like. Then arrange their equipment to take the picture they visualised. So, for them technology is just a tool to express their vision more efficiently.

I think I've got a long way to go before I reach that point.

Keith.

Originally Posted by keith_d

I think I've got a long way to go before I reach that point.

+1, but as they also say, it's not about getting there, it's the journey that counts!


... or so I try to convince myself...

Seeing as it's been so quiet in here lately, i have a question. Filters what's the score do you need one/ten, what do they do, how much are they, when to use?, you get the picture

Do we really need 11 sticky threads in the photo section?

[Richie]

yes, as they will get lost in the mists of interweb :0)

down to 8 :0) is that better?

[keith_d]

Originally Posted by bluefishman

Seeing as it's been so quiet in here lately, i have a question. Filters what's the score do you need one/ten, what do they do, how much are they, when to use?, you get the picture

I could cut my filter collection down to maybe five:

1,2 & 3) Graduated grey filters in different strengths for landscape photography. These are used because the sky is usually much brighter than the land and would otherwise be overexposed. The standard one is 3 stops which only allows 1/8 of the light through the darkest part. But this can be a bit heavy and make cloudy skies look artificially stormy. So have 1 and 2 stop filters too.

4) Circular polariser. This has the same visual effect as a regular polariser, but doesn't mess up the clever optics in modern cameras. It's used to cut down reflections on water & leaves, adjust the brightness of blue skies and boost colour saturation for sunny landscapes.

5) 81A weak warmup filter. This can be used for portrait photography to reduce the cool blue tones of studio flash, and also for sunset photos which might otherwise end up with rather blue shadows. I've chosen a very weak warm-up filter because the stronger 81C just looks completely artificial.


In terms of what to buy, I've gone for Cokin P series filters. The A series aren't big enough for modern zoom lenses where the filters are sometimes 77mm diameter. I guess you'd be looking at around £20 per filter, more for the polariser. But I haven't bought any for a long while.

I also leave a plain UV filter on almost all my lenses to protect the front element. I'd rather bin a £20 UV filter than a £500 lens, and yes I have done that one time when my bag wasn't closed properly.

I'd be interested to hear what other people have in their bags,

Keith.

Originally Posted by bluefishman

Seeing as it's been so quiet in here lately, i have a question. Filters what's the score do you need one/ten, what do they do, how much are they, when to use?, you get the picture

And here we go for another can of worms...

Filters fall into different categories according to their function, and consequently their necessity. Most of them are now a thing of the past, as when shooting film there's only so much you can do on post processing (unless you scan your film, of course) so you absolutely had to get it right on camera. That said, there still are a few that even though they aren't indispensable for an amateur, a serious photographer will have them in their bag:

Polariser: this one will help cut the non-polarised light (scattered light) before it reaches the lens. This will help deepen the colours especially in nature, like trees and sky. It will also allow you to increase or decrease glass and water reflections, depending on the angle you shoot at, effectively enabling you to see through them or turn them into mirrors. It's effect cannot be simulated in a computer, and it's one of the most important tools for nature photographers, so it deserve a place in everyone's bag. Good ones will be stupid expensive, though, and when using it with a DSLR you will need a Circular Polariser (nothing to do with the shape, only the way the light is polarised inside it).

Neutral Density: this is basically a neutral grey piece of glass that will cut down some of the light that reaches the lens. They come in different densities, like ND2 (cuts down 1 stop), ND4 (2 stops), ND8 (3 stops), etc., and will enable you to shoot with a much longer shutter speed than you would without it. They can be used to achieve that ghosting effect with people walking in front of a sharply defined architecture feature, or dreamlike water in streams of beaches. Keith also mentioned them in a previous post as a way to cut available light down to fall into flash sync speed territory when doing wide aperture portraiture. Their effect is pretty much impossible to simulate in post, so they are still necessary if you're looking for those particular kinds of effects. As a curiosity, Singh-Ray makes a Vari-ND that goes down to 8 stops by slapping two polarisers back to back and rotating one relative to the other, but they'll probably be more expensive than your lenses.

There is a variant of the ND, which is the Graduated Neutral Density. These feature a clear piece of glass on the bottom of the filter that becomes gradually darker as you reach the top edge. They allow you to tame high contrast situations like sunsets. Without it, you'd be fighting to keep the sky from blowing out to white while keeping the foreground from going pitch black. Put a graduated ND on the camera, adjust the transition to match the horizon, and now you have a fighting chance because the filter makes the sky naturally darker. They come in several densities and transitions, like hard edge (goes quickly from clear to dark) or soft edge (goes smoothly from clear to dark).
Their effect is hard to simulate in post without using HDR or layering multiple shots taken at different shutter speeds, so they still find their place in a serious photographer's bag.

UV filters: not needed with today's DSLRs. They were created to keep UV rays from reaching the film, which would degrade image quality, but DSLR sensors are filtered to protect this, so UV filters are largely unnecessary. This said, some people use them to protect the lens' front element from bumping into stuff, especially with the more expensive lenses. It's a lot cheaper to replace a filter than it is to replace a lens front element. On the other hand, it can be argued that you're spending shedloads of money on a lens and they putting a cheap piece of glass in front of it, therefore negating some of the reasons why you bought the lens in the first place, like sharpness and better protection against flare...

Skylight: not needed.

Colored filters: if you shoot black and white jpgs, you'll find a use for them (increasing contrast in some colours). If you shoot raw, you can ignore them as you can simulate their effect in post.

Special effect filters, like soft focus, etc: just do it in post.

IMHO, it's almost always better to avoid using filters unless you really need to (like polarisers and NDs) and shoot raw, as this will give you the best possible image quality to start with. Then you can learn how to apply the effects you want in post, but always leaving you with a way out, whereas if you apply the filter at shooting time you're locked yourself into a corner.

Another thing has to be said for filter prices: avoid the cheap ones. Just like lenses, good filters will be expensive, but they won't degrade your image quality as much when shooting.

Originally Posted by keith_d

I could cut my filter collection down to maybe five:

1,2 & 3) Graduated grey filters in different strengths for landscape photography. These are used because the sky is usually much brighter than the land and would otherwise be overexposed. The standard one is 3 stops which only allows 1/8 of the light through the darkest part. But this can be a bit heavy and make cloudy skies look artificially stormy. So have 1 and 2 stop filters too.

4) Circular polariser. This has the same visual effect as a regular polariser, but doesn't mess up the clever optics in modern cameras. It's used to cut down reflections on water & leaves, adjust the brightness of blue skies and boost colour saturation for sunny landscapes.

5) 81A weak warmup filter. This can be used for portrait photography to reduce the cool blue tones of studio flash, and also for sunset photos which might otherwise end up with rather blue shadows. I've chosen a very weak warm-up filter because the stronger 81C just looks completely artificial.


In terms of what to buy, I've gone for Cokin P series filters. The A series aren't big enough for modern zoom lenses where the filters are sometimes 77mm diameter. I guess you'd be looking at around £20 per filter, more for the polariser. But I haven't bought any for a long while.

I also leave a plain UV filter on almost all my lenses to protect the front element. I'd rather bin a £20 UV filter than a £500 lens, and yes I have done that one time when my bag wasn't closed properly.

I'd be interested to hear what other people have in their bags,

Keith.

What he said, in condensed version. I really need to work on my condensed writing skills.