Polarising & ND Filters & ND Graduated

Polarising filters come in two main types circular and linear. The circular screw to the front of the lens and rotate, the benefit of this is that you can see through the viewfinder the effect it has on your scenes as you rotate the outer part of the filter. While the quality is usually good with many manufactures you will require a new polariser for different size lenses or zooms (with different screw sizes). The other main type like cokin or Hood etc. use polarising filters that fit into a holder that hold ¾ filters at the same time and you just change the ring size for different lenses. These are a very cost effective method as you only need to purchase 1 filter type to fit many different size lenses.

What do polarising filters do?

They remove or reduce reflected glare from water and silver or metallic surfaces and they also increase the saturation of blue Sky’s especially useful in landscape photography. They can also reduce Haze. Just remember that they reduce light entering your lens by 2 stops or more. Best results are achieved if you are at 30/45 degrees to your subject. This filter type is a must have for landscape photography.

ND Filters & Graduated Gray & Coloured

If you could only choose 2 filters, these would be the ones to choose .The ND Gray or coloured which reduce light across the whole image in the case of gray ND filters they don’t change the colour rendition. ND graduate filters are one of the most popular filters for landscape photography. As the name suggested it’s a gray or colour (blue for sky) that is graduated normally from top to bottom of the filter. ND filters come in different strengths 0.3 (1 stop) 0.6 (2 stops) and 0.9 (3 stops).They can be combined or added together, as different lighting conditions will require different strength ND or ND graduated filters.

What do ND filters & ND graduates do?

Their main objective is to smooth out or reduce the difference in light between the highlights (normally sky) and the shadow or darker areas. Digital cameras are particularly poor at recording highlights and dark areas in the same image. Film cameras have slightly better latitude in recording highlights and dark areas. This is where ND graduated come in by reducing the difference in light between the light and dark areas. The Dynamic range of the human eye is up to 13 stops ,Film cameras 4/5 stops depending on film type ,but some digital  SLR’s  have only 2 stops, this normally represents itself with highlights (Sky’s) washed out. There have been big efforts to increase the dynamic range of sensors from the major manufactures, watch this space. ND graduates are available in soft or hard types. Use soft where there is not a clear defined change between sky and land .Use hard where there is a clear definition between horizon (sky) and land.

You will be amazed by the improvement to your photography by using these to main types of filters. If it is good enough for professional photographers it’s certainly good enough for you. Learn how to use these filters successfully and take your photography to another level.

Best of luck.