ALL ABOUT FILTERS

In the days of shooting film, keen photographers often amassed vast collections of filters which had both creative and corrective applications. If you had a few lenses with different screwthread filter fittings, you could also end up with multiples of particular filters in different sizes. With some types, this could also represent a significant investment.

Digital imaging transformed all aspects of photography, including using filters with many effects or corrections now achievable through either in-camera or post-camera processing. However, there still remains a need for selected on-lens – or ‘hardware’ – filters which achieve results that simply can’t be obtained with digital filters. You may not now have to carry a bag full of different filters, but there are some that you simply can’t go without if you want to optimise your results and achieve the best possible image file in-camera.

In the simplest of terms, a filter does exactly what the name suggests… it filters light in one way or another. Take a red filter, for example – still applicable for B&W photography today even if an in-camera option is often available – which blocks or filters out all the other colours of the visible spectrum except for red. If you’re shooting in colour, you’ll simply end up with an image that has a very pronounced red cast because of all the red light the filter has allowed to pass through. In B&W film terms though, the effect is on the tonal range, as a coloured filter lightens some