Digital Camera Filters for Perfect Landscape

Optical digital camera filters are a great way of not only adding drama to your landscapes but also enhancing the scene at the point of pressing the button. But as post-processing technique, such as HDR and split toning are becoming more and more popular, the need for filters in everyday use is slowly dying out. Gone are the days when a landscape photographer would have his bag rammed full of fancy filters ready to use one at any given moment.

These days, there are only really 3 types of essential filters for scenic photography – Neutral Density graduated filters (clear at the bottom, darker at the top) to help balance out exposure changes in a scene, solid NDs (dark all the way through) for enabling slower exposure times and polarisers, for cutting through reflections.

Stick with rectangular filters for ND grads, so you can move the light-dark “blend” point around and consider buying a kit to give you a range of creative effects.

Neutral Density graduated filters are ideal for balancing the light levels between a bright sky and dark foreground without interfering with the color. They come in various strengths and both “soft” and “hard” splits. Soft ND grads enable you to blend features on horizon into the sky. Those with a hard edge split are more suitable where the horizon meets the skyline with an almost straight line. If the grad was removed and the same digital image taken, the sky would be blown out and overexposed.

Circular polarisers allow you to cut out the reflections on water and foliage and boost the contrast between clouds and skies. A polarizing filter doesn’t have any effect on a scene if you are directly facing the sun or have it behind you. You need to be positioned between 45 and 90 degrees to achieve the best results.

Use solid, dark ND filters to cut the amount of light entering the camera lens. When used in combination with small aperture, this allows you to achieve slower shutter speeds and increase the amount of blur in moving elements of the scene. You can achieve some great effects by combining both ND grads, to hold back detail in skies, and solid NDs to enable slow exposures.

Tagged with: Camera Filters • Camera Lens • Digital Image • Exposure Times • Hdr • Landscape • Nd Filters • Polarizing Filter • Scenic Photography

Filed under: Photography Tips

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