Transcripts
1. 0I INTRO: Hello there, my name is am worth a nonprofessional photographer based in the UK. Welcome to my Definitive Guide to photography filters. In this class, I will discuss him why and how to use a lens filters to enhance your photography will be looking at the different types of filters they uses and how to use them. We step-by-step instructions and questionnaires to help you learn. This class is sure to help you up your photography game and improve your photos. Do you hope to see you in class?
2. 02 CLASS PROJECT: For the class project, I would love to see some of your work. So please go ahead and upload an image that you've taken shown how you've used the filters to improve the image. Through the course, there are several questionnaires that you can download and work through to help you learn. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comment section below. I'm really looking forward to seeing your work.
3. 03 POLARIZER: There are many different types of topography filters will be looking at them individually, starting here with the circular polarizer. A circular polarizer is made up of two bonded polarized glass elements. The frame is made from two rotating metal parts and let the filter rotate while being fixed to the front of the lens. When the polarizer is rotated, polarization effect will increase and decrease. Now, to quash a myth, the circular polarizer is not cooled circular because of its shape or because that it rotates in a circular motion. But it is in fact to do with the way that the light is polarized. There are two types of polarizers, linear and circular. Both around and both rotate. The linear however, messes around with DSLRs metering systems. And so therefore it makes some totally useless for us DSLR mirrorless users, I would advise purchasing a circular polarizer or CPL as they're sometimes called. So now we know what the polarizer is. What can we use it for?
4. 04 USING THE POLARIZER: A circular polarizer has many uses and affects the image in different ways depending on the direction of light. If you're photographing a sky, for example, rotating the polarizer will intensify the blues and make cloud details pop. I recommend shooting at 90 degrees to the sun for maximum effect. You can easily go to this by facing the sun. You left and right shoulders with M phase at 90 degrees. If you face along that line, you'll be 90 degrees to the sun. And this is where polarization would be the most effective. Shooting directly towards the sun or quite often have no impact on the saturation or cloud detail. But so, so to recap, if you shoot in skies, expect to see more cloud data and more saturated blues at 90 degrees to the sun.
5. 05 POLARIZER IN THE LANDSCAPE: Another great way to use a polarizer would be to cut through Hayes within a landscape. Essentially, haze is water vapor and water vapor reflects light and unpolarized that will help to cut down on this reflection as the light is scattered. Again, the direction of the light is critical for getting the best results. Whenever facing directly into the light you polarize, it will really struggle. If you needing to cut through Hayes, think about composing your shot in such a way that the polarization takes maximum effect. I think trial and error is probably the way to go here. So both of those techniques we've just talked about have their limitations. Where the polarizer really comes into its own is for woodland photography and water photography. In the woodland quite often we're faced with lots of glare, is glare comes in the form of light reflecting from shiny leaves. Sometimes this can be intensified in wet or damp conditions. Other light is reflected from the foliage is white light will stop the camera actually recording details in those areas. I grow, it will reduce the image quality and make it less saturated but more contrasty. Using a polarizer in Woodland is a great way to cut through this reflection, saturate the killers, and give a much more balanced field to an image. Probably the biggest impact to say keopi draws it can have that is when we use it to cut through the reflections on the surface of water. This can be great for seen through details below the surface and give the water-rich and we'll saturated look.
6. 06 WHEN TO USE A POLARIZER: So if the polarizer is such a fantastic tool, Wouldn't it be worth just leaving it on the lens for good? Well, not really. All of these techniques are great, but what we really need to think about is whether or not it actually helps the composition of the photograph that we're taking, take this shop, for example, had I used a polarizer here, or they've lost all of those wonderful autumn reflections, hadn't used a polarizer here. Maybe that Hayes would have been reduced. And it's that separation between the foreground tree and the background trees that make this shot work. So having a clear idea on the look that you're trying to achieve is critical for getting the best results. If you're undecided, as is often the case with may simply take a shot with the polarization and one without. That way you've got both bases covered. So now we've come, it was circular polarizer is good for. Let's take a look at a few reasons not use one at o.
7. 07 WHEN NOT TO USE A POLARIZER: When photographing skies, you have to be really careful that we don't get uneven colors within the blue areas of the sky itself. This will be accentuated the wider you go with your lens. Once you get below 24 millimeters on a full frame camera, expect to run into big problems regarding darker patches in your sky. I would suggest that if you're thinking about using a polarizer to increase the saturation will make cloud details pop. Would it not be better to do this in post-production? Adding a graduated filter in light room with a little bit of saturation and clarity, pretty much achieve the same results with less room for error. Now, I wouldn't use a polarizer for shooting panoramas. Having dark areas within your image will make stitching really, really difficult. So I would definitely avoid by using a polarizer if you're thinking about doing a permanent panoramic image, again, I wouldn't use a polarizer if I'm shooting directly into the sun, the effect will be very minimal and you're more likely to introduce lens flare ghosting into the image. One other thing to remember is when using a polarizer, we are adding another class element at the front of the lens. Now, if we're paying many hundreds or even thousands of pounds for lens, the fewer things we put in front of it, better. On-site only is a polarizer. If it improves the quality or a composition of your image using a polarizer, it will affect your exposure to. A polarizer can reduce the amount of light entering the sensor. Polarizer IOUs decreases my exposure by around about a stop. And this may mean that I might need to bump my ISO obey if I'm shooting handheld or even use a tripod if the light levels are already on the low side. Probably the biggest thing to consider though, is just using a polarizer help you composition. If it doesn't take off a Less class, the better.
8. 08 ND FILTERS: Each of density filters or ND filters, as they're sometimes known, are essentially sunglasses for your camera. They're made from glass or plastic resin and attach to the front of your lens. Their sole purpose is to reduce the amount of light entering the lens onto the camera's sensor. It can be used for film and digital cameras and come in a variety of sizes and densities. And the filters come in different strengths and are measured in their density by the amount of stops of light that they block from entering the camera. Firstly, let me briefly explain what a stop of litres. When we look at the exposure triangle on a camera, we see that it's made up of three different components, the ISO, the aperture, and the shutter speed. All three of these determine our exposure. Then the problem is that you'll have different measurements. Here. My ISO is measured in stops, starting an ISO 200. By next full stop of ISO is double, so ISO 400. Then my next is double again at ISO 800 and so on until we reach its maximum ISO of 12,800. What actual gain is measured in stop starting at 50.8, then F4, then f 5.6. This keeps going until I reach a maximum F22 islands. And finally the shutter. This time it's measured in fractions from one-second, half, a second, quarter of a second, and so on until we reach on eight thousandth of a second hair on my camera. So a stop of light is a universal measurement of light, a measurement that we can apply to all three elements of the exposure triangle on the camera and to measure light itself. Here, I have a three stop filter. This will reduce the amount of light entering the camera by three stops. So for example, if my camera's settings were ISO 200, my aperture is F8, my shutter speed at 1252 per second, correct? Evenly balanced exposure. Placing a three-step ND filter to the front of the lens would reduce my exposure by three stops, taking my shutter speed down from 150th of a second to 130th of a second, making my exposure time longer. It's similar if we take a three-step filter off and replace it with a six dot filter. We will now reduce exposure by six stops of light using the same example as we did just then of ISO 200 up to FA and shoot at 1 250th of a second. Placing a 6 dot filter to the lens will reduce a shutter speed to one quarter of a second. I can for an even longer exposure time. It works the same for ten stop filter two, but this time reduces ten stops of light. So why would we want to reduce the amount of light entering the camera? Well, there are several reasons, some of which are from a creative perspective and some from a technical. So let's look at the technical first. So every camera will have a maximum shutter speed that it can shoot up here. My shutter homophilic camera can close out an incredibly fast speed of one hundred thousandth of a second. This means the shutter is open for the duration of one eight thousandth of a second during the exposure. Now that does seem pretty fast, but sometimes it's just not fast enough. Let me explain by showing you this example. We are shooting a portrait and a really bright day in full sunlight. We wish to keep our background nice and blurred, make the subject pop from the background. Today this, we need to open the lens aperture to its widest to get that blurred effect. Say for this lens, I'm using its 56 millimeter lens with a maximum aperture of F1 point for now, because the aperture is so wide, the light is so bright, we may not be able to gain a quick enough shutter speed to get the correct exposure. My camera can't physically go beyond 18 thousand per second. So to take an image, I have two options, either close the aperture to reduce the light or to use an ND filter to reduce the light. President aperture might not be so desirable for the look or the image that we're trying to achieve a point, an ND filter would be the best option. Placing a three or six DOP ND filter on the front of the lens would mean the shutter speed could be slowed down by as many stops. Meaning we can now obtain an even exposure without maxing out the shutter speed.
9. 09 ND VALUES: As mentioned before, ND filters are measured in stops of light, which is a great way to work out your exposure. And it's easily quantifiable as it relates to the exposure triangle, making it easy to work out which filter to use for any given situation. So you would think that filter manufacturers would sell their products labeled with how many stops of light at that given filter will reduce. Well, sadly, this is not the case. No, me explain in more detail this ten stop coke in your answers ND filter is marked her ND 124, the sixth stop fire crest ND filter is marked up at 1.8, is six dot Cases filter is marked but MDG6 for this three stop case filter is marked in the eight. So filters that are marked up as an indie values such as case coke in Hoya, start at any value of n d two for one stock reduction. The NDI value then doubles for every further stop of light reduction. So AND2 for one stop and D4 for two stops AND eight for three stops, and so on. Lee and format high-tech use the optical density scale to show the strength of their filters. And this goes up in the scale of naught 0.3 increments. So 0.3 AND filters one-stop reduction, not 0.6 is a two salt reduction and 0.9 is a three-step reduction in light and so on, are put together a table for you which simplifies things a little bit. You can also download this as a PDF, but in your camera bag to help you out next time you're out, if you've got multiple brands.
10. 10 ND'S & FLASH: Using an ND filter can come in really handy for flash photography to, especially when trying to overpower the Sun. Like before, when our cameras should have speed maxed out at one hundred thousandth of a second. Flushing speed can max out at much lower values. Here, my maximum flashing speed is 1 250th of a second hair MMORPG camera. This means that the camera can't record or let in light from the flash any faster than 1 250th of a second. So let's work on another example. Again, we're outside and shooting a portrayed. This time we're looking to take a shot with the sun behind our model. In all circumstances, exposing for the brightest part of the image. In this case, the sun will result in the model being in silhouette. Essentially, the cameras dynamic range would not be able to cope with recording detail in the shadows and highlights. So we can do is use Flash to light the model, creating an evenly balanced exposure, correctly exposing for the Sun and correctly exposing for the skin. Big problem is because we're pointing the camera directly at the Sun is shutter speed is likely to be faster than that of the flash sync speed of 150 per second. So say we are pointing the camera at the sun to retain the highlights would mean a very, very fast shutter speed. Let us say, for example, one eight thousandth of a second. By placing a 6 dot AND filter to my lens, I'm able to reduce the amount of light reaching sensor by six stops. This means now that my should speak and come down to 125th of a second, which is perfect for shooting handheld and sinking the flesh. I can then adjust the power of the flash to correctly like the model making for an even exposure of the sky and the sun. And the model creating very evenly balanced exposure overall. Right?
11. 11 CREATIVE WITH ND'S: Probably the most common use for an ND filter is for creative effect. When shooting along exposure photography. We see this in landscape photography, architecture, and sports photography. To a long exposure essentially means that the shutter speed is very slow, allowing the camera to record motion. But classic dreamy Waterfall shop is a great example of a long exposure photograph. Let's use this quick example here. Here we have a nicely exposed image, shine bright conditions. The exposure time F11, ISO 200 is 1 15th of a second. Now at 1 15th of a second, the water is showing a little bit of motion blur, but not enough to make a dreamy look. So adding a 6 dot filter at the front of the lens, the lengthen the exposure time by six stops from 1 15th of a second to four seconds. This means a shutter will remain open for four seconds during the exposure and anything that moves within the same during those four seconds will be recorded onto the final photograph. So for this example, the moving water will be recorded as a blur, resulting in a dreamy look to enjoy. The rest of the photo is sharp, the Communists being locked down on a tripod so that camera shake is not introduced into the final image. So it's over hanging tree here is given some detail and texture for our subject. If light were lovely, foreground interests here in the shape of this rock in the foreground. And a bottom left conferred. So that's quite nice. Acts as an anchor to the image. And then we've got this long exposure to water cascading through the scene. When I'm doing a long exposure, what I like to do first is composed mugshot. Think that's the key thing really without competition, you really haven't got anywhere to go with your shop. So composing this shot, it's always the first thing. And then I have to think about what I want the war to look right? So for this example here, the water is moving quite quickly. I don't need to have a particularly long exposure to smooth that water completely out. The minute here, I put a six dot filter on and that's given me a 4 second exposure. That's probably able to talk me. I don't need to go that far. Probability two seconds would do it. But four seconds is fine. There's no movement in the trees or anything like that, so that's absolutely fine and that's really smooth. Not watch out. It's giving us up really milky look to the water, which is really nicely shot him. Now, I guess I should say as well is that I'm using circular polarized there. Now, what seems to happen when you've got a lot of light coming through from the side, from the back, especially on the water and in the foliage as well. The polarizer community cut through that graph and I've got a polarizer on here on the camera. And as I rotate the polarizer, you've got to see the effect it's having here on the water and on the foliage search really helping to keep the contrasts quite neutral, quite flat in the scene and helped us to balance things out and just save that reflection of water and help us to see into the scene, get more and more the richness. So I really like that. Depth of field is something that I always look up. First of all, I'm composing shop. So once you've gotten composition sorted out, and then thinking about what depth of field. Short hair. And 11, some focussed on this rock here, which is probably about a third of the way into the scene 11, that's given me everything sharp and print to that guy needs to be, you know, in sharp focus. So there's no depth field set really then it's just a case of working my shutter speed back. I can select the correct density filter can be on how slow or want to get the ship speed. So in this example here and what he said about four seconds to smooth the water out. Now if the water is moving really, really fast, then obviously I could go with a quickie should speed near major for every 1 second or maybe 2.5th. It will depends on the motion of the water and also how you're not warts look. You don't necessarily need to read it out to get a long exposure. It could just be a tenth of a second or supernode. I've just added a little bit of movement. You don't always have to make it smooth, you know, so it's just a creative choice. So let's take a look at some of the problems that we might have with a long exposure. So here today, it's hard to impress the women is really very still. And that enables us to take long exposure. Was moving with everything else still. Now, on a windy day, you got a bit of a problem because if we've got a 4 second exposure, like we have to take this shot and we'll refer early, just moving around, then all are fairly instant leaves across this, it's gonna become blurred as well. We're faced with a problem. You know, literally probably the only things that have sharp in this image would be the rock down here, maybe return to the tree, everything else. It's just going to be a bit mushy mess, really. We have to think about the length by exposure and how much movement we've got in the for loop. So if we can maybe make a 1 second exposure, and that's just enough not to get too much motion in an Elysian stuff. And great, if there's a lot of movement within the grasses and leaves, then we've got to think about maybe making two different exposures. Now this is something I do now and again. And actually I was in history location end of last year and ended up doing an image. It should still exposures or put up on the screen for you right now. Essentially, a long exposure for the water and then a quicker exposure for the rest of the image. And then I blended those two layers together in Photoshop to create an image which is the long exposure, the water, but a quick exposure for the rest of the image, meaning that produce the leaves and cross. These were all nice and sharp. So blending those two images together can work really, really well and completely overcome a problem. If you've got windy conditions during the long exposure.
12. 12 ABSTRACT WORK: Another creative way to use an ND filter is for intentional camera movement, or ICM, as it's sometimes known. This style of photography as a very abstract field to it. Essentially, we can use a slow shutter speed to intentionally record motion blur within the scene. So on a bright day, we may need to add an ND filter to gain a slow enough shutter speed, should speeds of around 1 second work great. So if you have an exposure time of say, an eighth of a second or F22. And in the three stock filter would help us to achieve a 1 second exposure, allowing the user to move and record motion within the scene. A founder saying hair, it's got 3 trees and enlarge upon train to the left, which has got lots of branches coming off it. And then in the distance there, we've got some beautiful golden foliage that's just standing out in the landscape looks absolutely sublime. It rarely does. The sun's directly from the side and that's kind of giving us this beautiful shape to the trunks of the trees. And what I'm doing very blende filter in front of a camera which is stopping five stops flow entering the lens and the camera starts reducing our shutter speed. And f 14, I'm able to get a quarter of a second even in these harsh conditions, which is great. And what I'm doing is a vertical sweeping motion. And that's smoothen out all of the colors and given us a real abstract fail. Now if then a fuel ready? And let's take a few more just to show you how. And it's very, very simple. Rarely is just the case. Can you focus point and then just sweep through and you'll get this code abstract shot. And what we decided to do as well is just to kind of make it even more abstract, is to do a double exposure. And now these cameras have a double exposure feature built into them, which is pretty cool. So absorbed today is a vertical shot and then I'm going to do a horizontal panning shot of the foliage downhill reasonably colors and just see what that does. And that's pretty cool. It's a neat effect actually, it's commonly given as this crisscross pattern in the thing. And it's a very abstract and very cold.
13. 13 GRADUATED ND FILTERS: Graduated filters have become a valuable tool for the landscape photographer. So I graduated filter is, as the name suggests, I filter that graduates. So this is a three stop soft edge graduated filter. And at the top of the filter, the light is reduced by three stops. The bottom is completely clear. The graduation between the clear half of the filter and the neutral density part of the filter is soft, which is why the filter is called a soft edge graduated voter. Graduated filters can be many different strengths and styles. And in addition to the soft edge Graduated Filter, we have the hard edge Graduated Filter. As the name suggests, the graduation between the clear and the filter part is a lot harder. Graduated filters are specifically used to reduce the exposure of a section of a photograph. Let's look at this example. We take an image of a scene and the sky is quite bright. If we expose for the sky, because it's so bright, it may make the foreground too dark. And this will vary from camera to camera and how much detail the camera can record is good dynamic range. My camera here has 13 stops. Dynamic range, meaning it can record detail throughout those 13 stops. Now this is a coil, a large dynamic range, but pointing your camera into the light will be very, very challenging. This is where a graduated filter comes in really handy. If I place a three stop graduated filter over the sky of my image. Effectively, I've increased the dynamic range of my camera by an additional three stops, thus making it easy to retain more detail throughout the rest of the scene. The soft edge grad is great form. We have a hilly background, whereas the hard edge grad is great for seascape or where the horizon line is very, very straight. Using hard edge graduated go to on a mountain range who darken the landscape as well as the sky, which isn't as desirable. Whereas the soft edge grad will offer a cleaner transition in addition to the soft and hard graduated filters also have reversed grads and blenders. Reverse grads worked with full neutral density, starting in the middle, going softer, the further you go up the filter, the bottom half is still clear. And these are great for shooting sunrises and sunsets, cityscapes where the brightest part of the sky is on the horizon line. Blenders have that neutral density spread across the whole, entire filter from 0 at the bottom to say three stops at the top. These work great when there is a very uneven horizon line, making the transition much smoother.
14. 14 MODULAR Vs SCREW IN FILTERS: So we've talked about many different filters, but let's take a look at the difference between them from a more physical perspective. We have two main types of filter that we can attach to the front of our lens. The module type and screwing type both work well, but choosing the right one for you will depend on many things including personal taste. Let's look at both types in more detail. Firstly, let's look at the modulus system. You're going to have. Here is a format high-tech fire crest modulus. As you can see, the set comprises of a polarizer, full ND filters, and graduated ND filters. Now these kids are mainly used for landscape nature photography. The system allows for the use of multiple filters at one time. So, for example, I could use a polarizer to reduce glare on the water, coupled with an ND filter to reduce my shutter speed, greater long exposure, and the graduated filter to reduce the exposure in the sky, making for a more evenly balanced exposure overall. Stacking all of these filters together can really push what's possible within an image, creating some dramatic effects. So here are a few pros and cons for unimodular filter Kip pros are you have complete control over exposure and polarization, and you've got the use of grads, some cons, well, they take a valuable space in the kit bag, can be heavy and takes time to set up. Next we have the screw in type. Now I use the case wolverines screw in magnetic filters. And as you can see here, they come in a set. I've got a polarizer at three stop and six top and attend stop ND filter. And these are I two-part system. Firstly, the filter thread screws into the lens front and the filter attaches to the adapter by magnetism. This makes it really easy to fit the filters to the lens set even comes with a lens cap and the filters can be stuck to. This system is so quick and easy to use, which is why I use the more now than I do the square modulus system. Unfortunately, there are no graduated doses available for screwing type filters, meaning and to achieve a balanced exposure on a bright day is more tricky. Exposure bracketing may be necessary. Now all screw and filters are magnetic. These are individual filters are independently screw to the front of the lens. This type may be a better option if you only need, say, a polarizer and A6 top-end day rather than whole set. So as a few present cons for these two, the pros are for the screen type. Well, they're easy to use and they're small and very lightweight. A cons would be that they don't have any graduated filters. And other different type of ND filter is the variable in the filter. These are very simple and can be very, very effective if you wish to travel light. They screw into the front of the lens and turn to reduce the light entering the camera. This one has five stops of light reduction, starting at one stop, go into six dots. As you can see, the more the filter is rotated, the darker the exposure variable and the filters work well for video too. So if you're shooting stills and video together, then these can be really valuable tool in Dade. One thing to look for it when purchasing a variable and a filter is that it has hard stops at either end of the rotation. This stops over rotation of the filter. Once past a certain point, the filter can introduce darker paths to the image and sometimes an X can appear, making the shock completely useless.
15. 15 ONE SIZE FITS ALL: Whichever filter system you go for, remember to go for a size that fits your largest lens. Also think about future lens purchases as well. By in one set of filters should last a very long time if the correct decisions are made at the beginning. So for me here, my largest filter thread or my Fiji lenses is 72 mil. So I've got a 77 million filter system. These filters for all of my lenses when the correct filter adapter is fitted, is the same for square modular types. Again, this one accepts a 77 millimeter lens and I use different adapters to make my lenses fit. So say, you only want to buy a polarizer. Well, again, you could buy a polarizer for the widest lens red you have unvoiced step-up brings for the rest of your lenses. You can also buy a magnetic adapter rings for your screw him filters. These are called Zoom magnetic filter adapters by Manfrotto. They make removing filters quick and easy and very similar to the case hoovering. They forget you can stuck filters. Sometimes this can save you money. Tends dot filters can be quite expensive, but if you've already got a three stop under six dot filter stacked together, that makes non-stop. So you could combine them to get something very similar and save you quite a bit of money.
16. 16 PROBLEM SOLVING: While filters do so many problems, I can also create problems too. Let's look at some of these problems and see how we can solve them. Firstly, whenever we attach more glass to the front of the lens, we run the risk of image degradation. What best advice hey, would be to purchase the best filters you can afford? High-end filters will be much better in terms of their colour quality and coating. Cheaper filters often come with a significant color cast, especially when they're stacked. They also lack the high-end coatings, reduce lens ghosting and flair. Let us flag can be very problematic when using filters as will no longer be able to use a lens hood to protect the lens from the sun. Even though my filters are multi coated, I still use my hand to shield the sun from the lens element. This can really help image quality when shooting towards the light. Vignetting can also be a big problem when stacking filters, especially when shooting with a wide lens, it's best to look on a manufacturer's website for list of compossible lenses or look for reviews online. White mentioned earlier, polarizers become less effective when putting towards or away from the light. If it's not working, take off the last class, the better. My advice would be if it doesn't enhance the image, remove it.
17. 17 FILTERS ARE REWARDING: He's in filters, can be a very rewarding experience in deed and can really enhance your photography. Do you hope you enjoyed this class? And they hope you enjoy using your filters to show, to show me some of your photos Eve created using the filters, it'd be great to see you work. If you enjoyed the class, please be sure to drop me a follow. Feel free to check out my other classes until next time guys, take care and I'll see you soon.
Ian Worth
