Do Photographers Still Need Filters? Maybe not the ones you think.

In this episode of The Wild Photographer, host Court Whelan explores the evolving role of physical filters in the age of digital photography. While many photographers rely heavily on post-processing software like Photoshop and Lightroom, Court argues that there are still certain filters that remain essential for achieving specific effects that digital tools can't replicate. Whether you're a seasoned pro or a photography enthusiast, this episode provides valuable insights into which filters you should consider keeping in your kit.

Court Whelan, a seasoned wildlife, nature, and landscape photographer with over 20 years of experience, hosts The Wild Photographer. Court is passionate about sharing his extensive knowledge of photography gear, techniques, and tips with his audience, helping them capture stunning images across the globe. His expertise is grounded in real-world experience, making his advice practical and valuable for photographers of all levels.

Expect to Learn:

• The historical significance of filters in photography and how digital tools have replaced many traditional filters.
• The essential filters that remain relevant today, including UV, polarizing, and neutral density filters.
• Tips on choosing the right UV and polarizing filters to protect your lens and enhance your photos.
• How to achieve the popular "silky water" effect in bright conditions using neutral density filters.
• Why certain modern filters, like black mist and gold mist filters, are gaining popularity, especially in cinematography.

Episode Breakdown with Timestamps:

• [00:00:00] - Introduction and Sponsor Shoutout:
  • Court introduces the episode topic and thanks the podcast sponsor, Lens Rentals.
• [00:03:00] - The History of Filters in Photography:
  • A look back at the traditional use of filters and their evolution in the digital age.
• [00:07:20] - The UV Filter: Protecting Your Investment:
  • Court explains the importance of UV filters and how they act as a protective layer for your lenses.
• [00:11:45] - Polarizing Filters: Do You Need One?
  • The benefits of using a polarizing filter, especially for landscape photography, and tips for selecting a high-quality one.
• [00:18:10] - Neutral Density Filters: Essential for Silky Water Effects:
  • Court discusses how neutral density filters allow for long exposure shots in daylight, creating stunning effects with moving water.
• [00:25:30] - Graduated Neutral Density Filters: Are They Still Relevant?
  • An exploration of graduated ND filters and how modern software might replace their use.
• [00:30:40] - Emerging Filters: Black Mist and Gold Mist:
  • A look at the rising trend of black mist and gold mist filters and their applications in photography and videography.
• [00:35:20] - Achieving the Starburst Effect Without Filters:
  • Court shares a pro tip on how to capture the starburst effect using only your camera's settings.
• [00:40:00] - Conclusion and Final Thoughts:
  • A summary of the episode's key points and a reminder to leave a review to support the podcast.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, use these links below if you plan on renting or purchasing a lens!  (by the way, you get 15% off at LensRentals.com by using the promo code WildPhotographer15).

My Full Camera Kit:

Chapters

• 0:00 Photography Filters
• 8:28 Neutral Density Filters
• 20:08 Photography Filter Tips and Techniques

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Wild Photographer. I'm your host, court Whalen, and today we are talking about filters. Do you actually need any filters anymore? But before we get into that, I wanted to point out a couple of quick things. One is that if you are enjoying this podcast whether this is the first one or a multi-time listener the very best thing you can do to help me, to help the show, is to leave a review and perhaps leave up to a five-star review and, more importantly, leave some sort of comment that really, really helps the show. Whether it's on Spotify, itunes, youtube, you name it, it does more than you think. So thank you in advance for doing that. I also want to thank the sponsor of our podcast, lensrentalscom, and I've said this before, but the reason I'm partnering with them is primarily because I love LensRrentalscom. They're absolutely incredible. It's such a huge tool to the photographer to be able to rent gear, whether it's high-end gear or gear you just don't know if you need. Not only can you rent it for a week or a day or two weeks, but they also give you the option to buy it afterwards, which is a really cool test before you buy scenario. So I really like them. Just big shout out to lensrentalscom Thank you for sponsoring the podcast, and if you use wild photographer 15, they will give you 15% off. So it's a pretty cool way, and we also get to track that as part of the show to show what sort of awesome reach we have to our dedicated photographers out there. So thank you so much in advance for all of that. So on to the show.

Speaker 1: 1:21

Filters Do you actually need them anymore? Let's start by talking about the history of filters. They are a topic, they are a thing in photography. A lot of times nowadays, especially with the younger folks, they're probably thinking about filters being like Photoshop filters, but they have roots in the single lens reflex world, in the film camera world, where you actually screw a filter on. There's still a lot of options to do that today and we're going to go over each and every one of those and kind of give the pros and cons my personal opinion as to why they might be useful or why I, why I hate them. I don't mean to be so one or the other, but I do have opinions about pretty much every single filter out there. But back in the day they were your warming filters, they were your cooling filters, they were your golden light filters. The thing is is like so much of what that once was is indeed done by Photoshop. So carrying around a huge backpack full of filters yes, I had a huge purpose back in the day, but it really isn't that important anymore. But there are a handful of filters you absolutely want to consider, and there is one filter that you probably have on your camera right now, or, if you don't have it, you should really think about investing. Every single lens that I own has this filter.

Speaker 1: 2:31

So let's start off with that most important filter. It's the UV filter. This is the most benign kind of milk toast filter. It doesn't do much, it's not. You know the UV filtering aspect isn't this game changing thing when you take photos of certain light. It's not going to alter the light really at all.

Speaker 1: 2:49

Primarily, what a UV filter is is it's a protector for your lens. I can't tell you how many times my UV filter will have a little scratch on it, just from years of wear and tear. Yet my main lens itself the actual element, the glass there is completely crystal clean after years of use. So UV filter is actually pretty inexpensive. It's relatively benign. They can be something like $20, $30, $40. Yes, there are companies that will sell you $100, $200, $400, $500 UV filters, and I'm sure they are a little bit better. But you can get a really, really good UV filter for like $40 or $50.

Speaker 1: 3:27

And oftentimes what I look for is first that price range. There are a few brands that I really look for, like Hoya, b&w, singray is kind of like the top of the line, but something in the $40 to $50 range. And then the additional thing that I look for. It has some sort of acronym like MRC, like multi-reflection coating or something of that nature. This is not critical. Again, the primary function of a UV filter is to do nothing, just protect your lens. So don't go too heavy into this. But oftentimes the manufacturers they brag about having this little extra coating on the filter itself. I think it's worth the extra $10 or $20 compared to the uncoated version. So I think it's a really nice thing to have. Maybe it's just placebo effect, but I think maybe it keeps my lens a little bit cleaner so I don't have to wipe it off quite as much.

Speaker 1: 4:15

Okay, so now the next filter. I'm kind of going slightly in order of importance here. The next one that I think a lot of people have, or at least consider, is going to be your polarizing filter. So this is again one of the filters that made its way through the photoshop era and is actually still quite useful, primarily because the physical activity of a polarizer is one of the few things you cannot do in photoshop itself. So the way a polarizer works is actually kind of like see through venetian blinds for your lens, so light only enters your lens, your sensor, through a certain plane. Don't worry about the scientific technicalities of it. The basic gist is that you can, you will be able to reduce reflections on water, reduce reflections on windows, etc. Etc. Now, that's not really the primary purpose in my mind.

Speaker 1: 5:04

As a nature wildlife, landscape photographer, what I like about polarizers is that they help clouds pop. They create that silver lining, they create that awesome puffy look of the big cumulus clouds and they make blues and really dark colors like that richer. It actually brings more blue out of the clouds. So I think, more than anything it's just a way to make your photos pop. Now I've talked to fellow photographers and they say that they use it for everything, even landscape photos, because it reduces a little bit the luminance on like green colors of leaves and trees and big landscapes like that. So you know, it's one of those things.

Speaker 1: 5:40

I think most pro photographers do have a polarizing filter in their bag, whether they use it or not. It's kind of up to you. I will caution you. This is going for all filters across the board. One of the big risks of using a filter is you get this infringement, this vignetting at the corners, and you'll notice this especially with less expensive filters. They are thicker glass and adding anything between your lens, or I should say your sensor, and the subject is adding another layer that needs to be really high quality for the inherent quality of the photo to come out. What I mean by that is you're slapping a piece of glass between you and the photo, and so the more glass you add, like if you stack filters or if you use inexpensive filters that are very thick glass, they do create this vignetting at the edges and it's in most cases so dark that it's relatively unacceptable, like you literally have to crop your photo in.

Speaker 1: 6:36

So the takeaway from that is, if you are shooting with an ultra wide angle lens and you need every little millimeter to get this big view and you're shooting with an inexpensive filter of any kind. Be very, very cognizant. Review your photos and look at the corners, because you're probably getting some dark vignetting that you're going to have to crop out after the fact. If you're shooting ultra wide and you don't need every single little inch in the frame, maybe it's okay, you can crop and that'd be just fine. But this is I've noticed.

Speaker 1: 7:04

The reason I'm talking about this with the polarizing category here is I've noticed it to be especially prominent with polarizers, especially inexpensive polarizers. So of all these filters that I'm talking about, if there's one that you drop a little bit more money on like, frankly, a couple hundred dollars a really good polarizing filter is going to be significantly better for you and your photography than an inexpensive polarizing filter. In fact, my humble advice is, if you're not spending $100 on a polarizer, you may not want to use it at all. You may just want to leave it off your camera, leave it off your lens and just stick with manipulating the photo in Photoshop or Lightroom, like saturating the blues. A little known trick is that one of the effects of polarizers can be done by simply decreasing the blue luminance. So if you're in Lightroom or Photoshop, you can look for that luminance tab. It's usually under, like the color mixer, decrease the luminance of blues, and that's doing about the same thing visually not physically, but visually. It's really really similar to what a polarizing filter would do for your lens. So polarizers I do have one, I do like them. I'm headed to Greenland soon and I will absolutely be having my polarizer on by default, so I think it's going to really really pop the blues out of the icebergs and out of like skies and clouds, just make more of a dynamic landscape. But again, it's not one of those things that I think is really critical, like a UV filter might be.

Speaker 1: 8:28

There is one other category of filter that I'm going to tell you about that is pretty critical for certain kinds of shots. A polarizer is not one of those. It's just kind of like a really nice to have. If you have spent the money and you've gotten all the other gear you wanted, you're like I have a little bit of cash left, or I just made the next thing neutral density filters. This is what I was talking about where you physically cannot get the shot if you don't have a neutral density filter. The shots that I'm talking about they're very, very specific.

Speaker 1: 9:00

There is kind of one purpose for a neutral density filter and it is to take long exposure photography in bright conditions. The idea is that if you're shooting at night and you're doing long exposure photography one second, two, second, four, second, 20 seconds there's so little light in the atmosphere, there's so little light reaching your sensor that you can do that and be at F4, f5, 6, heck, f16, your aperture can balance out that really long shutter speed. Now the problem is is if you're in front of a waterfall or moving river these are kind of the main applications here. If you're in front of a waterfall or moving river, these are kind of the main applications here. If you're in front of those things, but you're in daylight conditions, even if you're under the canopy of a forest in Costa Rica or you're on the shadowy side of a mountain in Colorado or Wyoming, you still are going to need some way to physically darken the amount of light coming into your sensor. It's kind of an abstract thought.

Speaker 1: 9:50

We don't think usually of having too much light in photography Nine times out of 10, it's the opposite. We're trying to increase the amount of light reaching our sensor. But when you want to do a one second, two, second, three, second shot of moving water, specifically the silky water effect in bright daylight conditions. You got to slap a neutral density filter on your lens to limit the amount of light. Otherwise aperture just cannot compensate for that flow of light. You can't stop down your aperture to a small enough pinhole to compensate for the amount of light flowing through in one to four seconds Now.

Speaker 1: 10:25

So neutral density filters. They usually come in various categories or degrees and they are usually categorized by stops, the amount of stops that this dark tinted lens gives to your camera. I don't really really recommend getting too scientific in this and reading too far into it. I think a good six stop neutral density filter is about ideal. A one stop just means you're having the amount of light by 50%. That really doesn't do a whole lot. You kind of want to make a big, significant push because if you're in big daylight conditions you want to be able to slash that light significantly. And the reality is every time you go up a stop in aperture you're having that amount of light. So to add just one more half beyond F22 or what have you is not going to do a whole lot. So six stops to me is that sweet spot.

Speaker 1: 11:16

But I want to tell you about a cool thing that's really come about and very, very popular in recent years is called a variable neutral density filter. If you turn out to be a neutral density nut and you're photographing waterfalls and moving rivers and cascades all day long on all of your photo expeditions, you might want to consider a variable neutral density filter. It's a really interesting concept. For most of them, from what I understand, they are essentially two polarizing filters. Remember, polarizing filters are kind of like Venetian blinds, where they only let light in through one plane. But if you stack two polarizing filters on top of one another, as you rotate, all of a sudden it gets much, much brighter and much, much darker. So you actually have complete control over how much light is let through this filter, giving you super, super precise control over how many stops of light are allowed in to get basically the perfect shutter speed and the perfect aperture for your lighting conditions. So I may have gotten down a very, very techie rabbit hole here.

Speaker 1: 12:16

I want to come back to the surface and basically encourage you to think about a neutral density filter. This is one of those filters in my mind you don't need to spend a lot of money on. Yes, variable neutral density filters are expensive just because of the tech involved with polarizing filters and stacking them and making sure they're calibrated. But if you want to just get a run of the mill, six stop neutral density filter, you can probably go for one of the cheaper brands or at least cheaper versions, because, honestly, you're probably going to use them on a typical photo trip once or twice out of 2000, 3000, 4000 photos. So to make sure you get the utmost quality by dropping a couple hundred dollars more, I don't personally think it's worth it. So, in other words, neutral density filter a really cool thing to have in your kit for photographing waterfalls or moving water, to get that silky effect in daylight conditions. But don't break the bank to get them, okay.

Speaker 1: 13:09

So there's a version of neutral density filters I think is quite interesting. I'm going to be upfront. This one's kind of going the way of the dodo. Photoshop and Lightroom have really figured out a way to do this quite well, and it's called the graduated neutral density filter. So what graduated basically means is that there is a gradient between the dark tint of that neutral density and completely clear, and so what this allows you to do, the most common application. I have one, I've used one. I like them. I don't use them much anymore, but basically what it allows you to do is imagine yourself in a sunset scene where you want to get great foreground light meaning the stuff in front of the sunset and also get really, really great color and texture on the sunset itself.

Speaker 1: 13:50

So a photo a few years back that comes to mind is photographing in Bryce Canyon National Park of a glorious sunset. Now it's hard to have your cake and eat it too with sunset photography, because if you want to get a great shot to illuminate the foreground in this case Bryce Canyon these beautiful hoodoos with the pinks and yellows and reds and oranges, they're really, really great. But if you want to get that properly exposed while also exposing the pretty bright sunset, you're going to either have good exposure on the foreground and a blown out, overly bright sunset, or you need to darken your shot and get a really evenly exposed sunset at the expense of a shadowy, dark, hard to see, obscured foreground. The answer well, a physical way to do it is to screw on or clip on a graduated neutral density filter such that it manually darkens that sunset so you can expose for the foreground but then it manually darkens that sunset. It's an interesting hack. It's not something that you might think of if you're newer to photography, but by literally splitting your frame in half or in thirds and darkening that sunset it gives you, it allows you to have your cake and eat it too.

Speaker 1: 14:59

Now, since I'm on this topic, I will mention that to get a really good graduated neutral density filter, the best way to do it is to get one of these that are actually like rectangular filters, such that they clamp on to the tip of your lens and you can slide it up and down. So, as you can imagine, if you're in front of let's go back to this Bryce Canyon sunset thing if you're in front of that, do you really want to put the horizon smack dab in the middle? Because that's what most circular neutral density or circular graduated neutral density filters are is. They are gradient, such that transition zone is in the middle. But, as we all know, you kind of want to make your scene a little more compelling. You want to add some interesting composition, like the rule of thirds, and so to have it smacked out in the middle actually goes against those rules, so it's kind of weird.

Speaker 1: 15:47

The affordable, consumer-based, practical ones are these split in the middle. But to get them really good you want to buy. I think they're called like Koken filters or Lee filters I honestly don't remember but they are a little bit more money, in fact oftentimes a lot more money, a bit more work, because it's a screw on a clamp and then you have to clamp this glass and what if the clamp loosens and the glass slips through? It's kind of a headache. So what I do nowadays is I don't use any of the graduated neutral density filters and I instead rely on the graduated neutral density tool in Photoshop. It works surprisingly well.

Speaker 1: 16:25

Now, if you have the most varied light and dark conditions on the planet, it might not work well enough, but honestly, for most things we're talking about a stop or two of light and Photoshop actually works really quite, quite well. Pro tip on that if you plan on using the graduated neutral density filter feature of Photoshop to take the best shot to allow that feature to work well, it is always better to lighten something that is too dark than to darken something that is too light. Let me say that again it is better to shoot a little bit darker so that you can lighten it in Photoshop than to shoot overly bright in camera and then use Photoshop to darken it. That's just the way the processing works, the way the data works in terms of the darks and the lights. You have more data in the shadows than you do in the blown out highlights. So shoot a little bit darker. Leave the graduated neutral density at home, or don't buy one and start to practice on Photoshop, because it's a pretty inexpensive, really precise, game changing way to do it. I absolutely love it.

Speaker 1: 17:24

Okay, so now we're going to move on to a couple of filters that are kind of newer in the world and I'm exploring them myself and the first one is going to be your black mist filters. And for whatever reason, I'm getting advertised these things left and right on Instagram and on websites, probably because I'm looking at companies that also make those and they're their newest, hottest product. But basically, a black mist filter is truly kind of creating a more ethereal, darker, mysterious scene. It darkens your photo, it makes highlights a little bit blurry, kind of like a foggy evening in London kind of look, that's the best way I can describe it. It's quite interesting that they have caught on with such popularity, because I think these are things that you can be doing in Photoshop. But if you love that look with your mysterious kind of dark tone travel photography. There are a few companies that are making black mist filters and they look pretty cool. It's not really my style so I don't think I'm going to pick one up necessarily. But in the full spirit of talking about all filters past, present and future, I think black mist filter is something that we're going to see more of in the future and it tends to be a little bit more for cinematography than for photography. But nevertheless, you know the camera, you have probably does both, so it might be something that would be fun to experiment with if you're looking at getting a filter kit Along those lines.

Speaker 1: 18:47

There's also what's called gold mist, and you know. Much like the black mist, that kind of darkens and makes highlights a little bit more bursty and more cloudy and foggy. The gold mist does that cloudy effect but injects a warmth, this kind of like warming golden glow. Again, I don't think these things are necessarily game changers. If you like that look, you can probably replicate it in Photoshop with a few clicks of a button, but nevertheless I want to tell you about them. Gold mist it in Photoshop with a few clicks of a button, but nevertheless I want to tell you about them. Gold mist, black mist filters are two that I see are kind of the hip filters these days, especially for video on your DSLR or your mirrorless camera.

Speaker 1: 19:23

Okay, so the last one I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about. They're known as starburst filters. I am guilty. I picked up one several years ago. I wanted to get starburst photos, meaning like I'm saying starburst, but it's really a starburst of the sun, meaning when you take a photo of the sun it has those beautiful rays coming out of it and this filter actually amplifies that. And I'll tell you how it does it. I actually didn't know the mechanics until I bought it, but in the filter itself there are just minute etched lines going across, almost like a crisscross tic-tac-toe pattern that the light gets into and kind of bounces around lightly and creates these lines of light to make it kind of look like any light source is shining, with big sunburst starburst effect.

Speaker 1: 20:08

I got to say I think I've since gotten rid of that filter. I may have thrown it away because it was like $7 or something. I did not spend a lot of money because I just wanted to experiment, but I really wanted that sunburst effect, especially as the sun was coming up. We're going to go back to Bryce Canyon I don't know. This is on my mind. As the sun's coming up over the Aquarius Plateau, it makes just this really really beautiful, soft, almost pink golden light across the entire hoodoo range, this Bryce Canyon Amphitheater, and I wanted to get the sky to be shining with a shimmery golden light in the array of starbursts.

Speaker 1: 20:41

Well, again, this filter overdid it. It was too much starburst, it looked too fake. So I'm going to tell you right now, as a bonus tip for this episode, of how to get the starburst effect without a filter, and it's pretty simple. So this is my way. There are other ways to do it, but the quick and dirty way is to set your camera on aperture priority mode or some mode so you can directly control aperture and ramp that aperture all the way up to F 16 or, ideally, f 22.

Speaker 1: 21:09

Get that sun where it's about half visible and half hidden. That's why a sunrise is so great is because as it's rising, it's automatically half visible, half hidden. But if you are not in front of a sunrise, let's say you're in front of a rock formation and it's midday, just move your body. So about half of that sun is exposed. With that F22, that very, very narrow aperture, it's going to give you that sunburst effect and you can exaggerate the rays, the prominence of the rays, as you expose more and more of the sun. So, as it's more hidden, very small, subdued little rays as the sun peeks out from around the corner, as you move yourself to expose yourself to more of the sun, the rays just get bigger and bigger and bigger until it's all clouded out and there's a point of no return. So yeah, bonus tip, a way to do it.

Speaker 1: 21:54

I think it's still the tried and true way, regardless of what filter technology is out there. I think it's a really, really fun thing to do and you don't need a filter for it. So leave that one at home. Don't bother buying it in the first place. Okay, well, folks, that is it. So a little recap.

Speaker 1: 22:08

We talked about the history of filters in a lot of this warming and cooling effect. We're seeing a little bit of a resurgence of that with the black mist and the gold filters, but a lot of it is taken care of with Photoshop, with white balance settings today. So the need for filters is very, very minimal. You do not need to carry a separate backpack of 12, 20 filters. Like photographers in the olden days but there's still maybe a few you consider Primarily UV filters for every lens you have.

Speaker 1: 22:34

Highly recommend it. Protect your lens, protect your investment, be a little more conscientious of cleaning your lens so you don't worry about scratching it. But then you also have polarizing filters, which I think is a really important one to at least consider. I have been hot and cold for many years on polarizers, but it's one that I think a lot of pro photographers consider. And then we talked about neutral density and graduated neutral density. You cannot take silky photos of waterfalls and moving water and daylight conditions without a neutral density filter. So I highly recommend you look into one of those, especially if you're going on a trip or photographing somewhere where moving water is likely to be a thing mountains, think of streams, creeks, et cetera, et cetera. And honestly, it's kind of just fun to practice in your backyard. If you have a river nearby or a Creek or a stream or anything like that, you can create some beautiful works of art with that silky water effect. And then graduated neutral density.

Speaker 1: 23:25

I like Photoshop. I think it does a better job, so I no longer carry one with me. So, folks, there you have it. Wild photographer episode on filters. Are they even practical anymore? So, folks, thanks so much for listening today. As you can tell, this is really a passion project of mine. I've been photographing around the world for over 20 years now and this is my way of giving back a little bit, delivering tips, tricks and techniques, giving the tools to take better and better wildlife, nature, landscape and travel photography. Again, the best way you can support the podcast is leave a review, leave a star rating up to a five-star review, and you know. Thank you so much for joining today and I look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks, bye, thank you.