Neutral-density, color-graduated, color-compensating, enhancing, polarizer, soft-focus and specialty filters are used in color photography. Experiment and play with various filters to create your unique, personalized style.
Instructions
1. Study the scene you wish to photograph. Look for any extreme contrast in light. In a sunset or sunrise, the foreground is darker than the sky.
2. Use a graduated filter to compensate for these differences in contrast. A graduated filter is half clear glass and half neutral or a color. It allows the foreground to absorb more light and make the contrast between the sky and foreground less extreme.
3. Use a polarizer to prevent glare from the surface of water or from bright sunlight. A polarizer will deepen the blue of your sky.
4. Create richer colors or a mood with an enhancing filter. Fall colors such as red, orange and yellow will really snap with color when you use an enhancing filter.
5. Try a blue or cooling filter such as the 80A or a FL-D to counter the greenish hue your photograph may have when shooting under tungsten or fluorescent lights. A good place to try this filter is in basketball gymnasiums, where photos can take on a green tint.
6. Use a warming filter such as 81B when taking pictures on an overcast day or in open shade. It will add a golden glow such as the late afternoon sun emits to your photograph.
7. Play with some of the specialty filters such as the soft focus for portraits or a filter to give the lights of a city a "star" effect.
8. Choose the filter to fit the lens you wish to use or use an adapter ring to fit filters to various lenses.
Tags: enhancing filter, filter such, graduated filter, specialty filters, your photograph
