What filters do novice photographers use?

Friends who have just started to learn photography often see the word "filter". There are many different kinds of filters on the market now. How should novices choose to buy the necessary filters? Under what circumstances will they be used? This article can give you some advice.

1. UV glasses/protective glasses

This is probably the first filter you come into contact with, completely transparent. Most filters are used to filter ultraviolet rays, but now many manufacturers just regard glass as a "protective mirror", which can be installed for a long time in daily shooting to protect expensive lenses.

However, when exposed for a long time (such as night scene and starry sky), or shooting under a light source with a small aperture (such as shooting the star-shaped sun), it is recommended to take off this protective mirror temporarily to avoid catching dust or light on the mirror surface.

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2. Polarizer (CPL)

Polarizer is one of the necessary filters for taking goggles photos. Its main functions are:

Make the sky bluer

Strengthen hue and enhance color saturation.

Reduce/eliminate the reflection of water, glass and green leaves.

Dimming effect

A high-quality polarizer is very valuable in landscape shooting, because it can not only make photos more colorful by reducing reflection, but also capture scenes that cannot be photographed without filters, such as clear lakes or objects behind glass.

3. Gradient Gray Filter (GND)

In addition to the CPL polarizer mentioned in the second point, one of the necessary filters for landscape photographers is GND gradient gray! GND is a transparent to gray filter, which has two types: square and shape. GND is mainly used to balance the light difference, avoid large-area overexposure or darkness, and make photos professional immediately!

For example, if you take photos of the sky and the ground in broad daylight, if you don't use the GND filter, either the sky is overexposed and the ground is normal, or the sky is normal and the ground is too dark. GND can solve or reduce this problem and make the photos you take more in line with (or exceed) the environment seen by the naked eye.

In addition, the use of GND filter can also make photos have a fantastic effect similar to HDR photos, which is very interesting.

4. Reducing mirror (neodymium)

As the name implies, a dimming filter is a filter used to reduce the incoming light. Like CPL and GND, it has squares and circles. Some people may ask, why do you need an ND dimming filter? Isn't it ok to narrow the aperture, speed up the shutter or lower the ISO? In fact, sometimes these settings may not be applicable, such as:

Tap water: Many times we need to use a shutter of tens of seconds or slower. Even if the aperture and ISO are lowered, the shutter may not slow down to keep the photo unexposed. At this time, we need to reduce the lens;

Take a portrait with a large aperture: it's not just a portrait. When shooting shallow depth of field with large aperture (f/2.8, f/ 1.4, etc.). ) In strong light, the shutter speed often exceeds the camera limit. If the shutter exceeds 1/4000s, 1/8000s, etc. And the photos were still overexposed, so we used them.

Remove the afterimage of moving objects: Like shooting running water, sometimes we want to use a slow shutter to remove the afterimage caused by moving objects. We can also add a dimmer and use an ultra-slow shutter to remove moving objects in the photo.

So, do you choose a square filter or a circular filter?

For UV protection/goggles, you should buy a circular filter that matches the lens size to provide close protection. CPL filter should also be round, because it is more convenient to turn the filter when using it.

GND gradient gray filter can be square and suitable for most lenses with different diameters.

The neodymium reduction mirror can be square or round.

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The above four filters are necessary for beginners to learn photography. You can learn how to use them to help you take more attractive and professional photos.