Improve your shots using optical filters

Credit: https://www.gimp.org

Here we’re going to be looking at photographic filters – but first, a word of explanation. The term ‘filter’ has taken on a different meaning in recent years. If our quick Google search is representative, a filter provides a means of digitally altering a photo. Commonly requiring little more than a single click, such filters can be used for artistic effect or for pure entertainment.

Before the advent of digital photography, though, a filter was a device that screwed onto the front of the camera’s lens, and applied some effect optically. These effects were usually not nearly as extreme as those offered by some digital filters, but enabled film-based photographers to improve their work substantially. What’s more, the benefits of optical filters or their digital equivalents can be just as important today.

In this tutorial we’re considering only those effects that can be achieved optically, and so we’ve excluded the more bizarre effects that really don’t need much in the way of instruction. Paradoxically, using filters to achieve more subtle effects often requires more understanding, but those more refined effects often make the difference between a photo that’s just okay and one that’s really good. What’s more, in many cases, a really good photo is often one that doesn’t appear to have been edited or filtered in any way.

Optical or digital?

First of all, we need to address the question of which is best: an optical or digital filter. As a general rule, we