A complete guide for camera filters.

Now let't talk about filters! No, i don't mean the Instagram or Snapchat filters. We will talk about camera filters (physical ones) and how we can use them for our photos.

Let't begin with categorising them and see the differences between them.

Now some lenses do not have thread in front or they might have the lens hood permanently attached on them by factory, or like many wide angle lenses the from glass element might protrude, making it impossible to screw a filter on them.

So you basically slide them to the holder and they will do all the job filtering the light. The advantage of these filters is that they give you more flexibility to adjust them, stack them and utilise them. Especially when it comes to gradient filters ( the filters that are half dark and half clear to prevent overblown skies on high contrast frames). You might find decent round gradient filters but you wont be able to adjust the middle line, so you will be left with it at 50/50 at all times. 

One more major point is that with the circular filters it becomes really hard to use a circular polariser filter together, since the CPL needs to go first on the lens to avoid heavy vignetting and so when you will try to screw the next filter it will become difficult to adjust the moving part on the CPL. For me that is a deal breaker, but this is just a personal opinion!

If you are just starting off, the circular option will be a better option, since they are easier to find and way cheaper. The only thing is that you will need to buy some adaptors to make sure they fit all your lenses. It is better to buy the filter that will fit your biggest lens and then the adaptors to step down to the smaller lenses.

If you are in for the long run and you want to invest in that then i would recommend the square filter system option. You get more flexibility, slightly better quality and less vignetting in the expense of some extra time and money!

Do you see the difference on how the water looks? That is because of the long shutter speed that captures the motion of the water, making it look like that.

They can be really helpful and save the day when the sun is high and is ruining your sky details. But even on a cloudy day you will get more detail and contrast in the sky area. Theoretically you can recreate that effect in post processing but it won't be the same. It is always better to capture as much detail as possible, in order to have more information to work with in post processing.

They might give a feel of extra contrast as well , especially in the sky area. Not a must, but i really love using them. They come in both the circular system that you can screw them on the lens or in special version for the square filter systems.