JUMPING INTO LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY: What filters to get first.

This is a question that’s most frequently asked by those wanting to start Landscape Photography. And NO, WE DON’T MEAN INSTAGRAM FILTERS.

STRAIGHT TO THE POINT: A Circular Polarizer then a dense ND filter.

Here are the uses:

Manila’s Roxas Blvd skyline. Long exposure with a HOYA ND400 filter that allowed flattening of the water. Intensified blues and reflections through the HOYA Circular Polarizer.

Circular Polarizer (CPL): CPL filters have two layers. One attaches to your lens and the other rotates. You rotate the filter to change the direction of light. It is mostly used to increase the blue tones in the sky which would then also boost colors that contrast to blue (white, orange or yellow). Another use is it can lessen or boost reflections on wet surfaces. It can either make the water more clear, or intensify the reflection. It can not, however make your sky blue if it is primarily grey. Good weather is still important.

Taken in Gabaldon, Nueva Ecija Philippines with a FORMATT HITECH FIRECREST 10 stop ND filter and a HOYA Circular Polarizer. Shot for a whole minute, allowed by the firecrest. The clouds are made to stand out more with the use of the CPL that intensified the blue sky (even if it was turned monochrome).

ND400: This is used when the scene is bright and you want to do long exposures. In the first photo, it was used to let the water (moving variable) smoothen out totally. If you used a less dense filter for this scene, you’d be able to do a much shorter exposure and the ripples in the water would still be visible. In this second photo, there were clouds moving in the scene, the ND filter allowed them to scud nicely throughout the long exposure.

USING FILTERS

#1: Most important : We don’t (or very rarely) use filters at night.
- ND filters are used to make the scene darker to be able to do long exposures. At night (beginning right after sunset), it is already dark, hence you can easily do long exposures.

#2: Filters are used according to the intensity of light. Brighter moments mean denser ND filters (ND400- 9stops or Firecrest 16stop during bright daylight, ND8 for when the sun is about to disappear) Learning to adapt to the changes of light is key.

#3: When using filters, remove your UV/Protective filter. They can just lessen the sharpness of your images especially if you’re using a cheap brand.

#4: When using multiple filters, make sure the denser filters (ND400) is put first (closer to the lens) than the less dense ones (CPL or ND8)

#5: Filters are long term investments. You may be just starting landscape photography and have not yet invested on an ultra-wide angle lens, filters seem to be a more affordable first step. That’s true. Your kit lens is a good lens to start with. However, it is good to think long term. Which means that it’s a wiser choice to get filters with a 77mm or 82mm diameter and a step-up ring to make it fit your kit lens. Once you upgrade to that 10–22mm line or that 17–40mm line (if you go full frame), you don’t have to get a whole new set of glass.

THANKS FOR READING!