Special effects filters and digital photography

I like my camera equipment but I’m not in love with it.

Of all the different pieces of camera equipment, special effects lens filters have got to be the most over rated.

A regular polarizer?  A uv filter?  A neutral density filter? These are all good items to have in your camera bag. They come in handy on a regular basis because they actually work. But  special effects filters? That’s where I think there is a great deal of confusion and a whole lot of hype.

Over on the Singh-Ray Filters blog,  a common refrain is how special effects filters saved the day for photographers. On a great deal of the photos, I see little or no difference comparing the before and after images.

It’s always good to get two sides to a story. I have tried to post questions on the blog but they never show up. Commenting is locked, so I am posting my thoughts here where I know they will appear.  This post isn’t a knock on the manufacturer or their products, just my observation on the effectiveness of special effects filters. These are my observations, nothing more. Nothing less.

I make it a habit never to mention brands of equipment or what equipment I use and for a good reason. First of all, like most of the photographers reading this, I have to buy my equipment. Nothing is given to me for free. I have no commercial interest in any photographic equipment companies. I get a discounted pro price from the manufacturer of the camera I use like many working pros but I won’t be mentioning the brand unless it is relevant to the post.

Equipment is secondary to seeing.

Special effects filters do have a place in photography. I own a set of Lee graduated ND filters. I use them on occasion but a life saver for my photos?  No.

There is nothing these filters do that I can’t do just as easily on my computer.

The above photo is the result of less than five minutes of tweaking in Photoshop. That five minutes involved, cropping, spotting, etc., etc.  The yellow color could as easily have been, blue, purple, orange, red, you name it. That is one of the big reasons for not introducing effects on the raw image in camera.

When introducing color with a filter onto an image, you are left with fewer creative choices when you get home. I like choices. Creativity doesn’t end when the image is exposed. That is the beginning of the process.

The photo below is the three exposures blended into one image. A graduated filter used here would burn down the fence post unnaturally. With this as a starting point, I can keep the colors as natural or vivid as I want. Not shooting with a filter leaves me with more creative choices.

Photo equipment is, well, photo equipment.

Imagine a carpenter and his saw. He or she is concerned about durability, price and how easy it makes their job. You don’t see too many carpenters gushing about their Dewalt saws and how they improve their craftsmanship. No, their focus is on getting the job done in a precise, efficient and quick manner.

Contrast that with many photographers. You know exactly what brand and types of equipment they carry in their bags.

Gear collector or photographer? Collecting equipment or collecting images?

Cameras and the related gadgets don’t make you more creative. Your creativity comes from within. Give a brush to Rembrandt and give yourself a brush. Does it matter what kind of brush Rembrandt uses? Camera gear is pretty much like that.

A different word processor won’t make you a better writer. Different camera gear won’t make you a better photographer.

That idea seems to get lost too often in magazines and blogs where often the message is about the equipment and not the photograph.

Nikon, Canon, Pentax. Does it really matter??

When you see a photo you like in a magazine, on a wall or on the internet, can you tell what was  used to take it. I can’t. I see photographs taken ages ago by Elliot Porter that I love. Was it his equipment that made his images so good? No, it was his ability to visualize a scene and convey it to film and then print.

There are too many long, drawn out discussions on photo  forums arguing the differences in high ISO performance or lens fall off or whatever by these gear collectors obsess about but you rarely ever see what these guys shoot. Something important is being neglected in these discussions.

Back to the blog. So, I read from a couple of shooters that their filters  allowed them to spend less time processing and more time outside shooting. Another misconception.

I shoot extremely fast. When the light is changing quickly, second by second and the sun is going down, I am not one to be reaching into my camera bag and grabbing for another filter. In the time it takes to put the filter on, I can already be in another shooting position and grabbing a few DIFFERENT shots to take home and have a greater choice of images to choose from.

That to me is a more efficient use of time. Shooting quickly leaves me with more choices. Put on a yellow graduated filter and your image is forever stuck with the yellow. It’s difficult to remove and keep the bottom half of the image looking normal. Shoot it without the filter and when you get home you’ll have an infinite number of colors to introduce to your image.

Another misconception. Processing. How much time does it take to process a photo?

I don’t send hundreds and thousands of photos to my stock agencies annually but I know that I process more images than most. If you plan on processing and printing every single thing you shoot on a trip then maybe using these filters makes sense.

I don’t know of anyone that processes and prints the majority of what they shoot. If you’re out for a week of picture taking and bring back a few hundred images it’s unlikely that you’re going to be keeping a few hundred to print or send to stock. If you are, you’re going to drive your editor nuts because no one has a keeper with every frame they expose.

These filters play a small part in my photos. At times they help. Most of the time they are only taking up space in my camera bag.

Color enhancing filters? At two to three hundred dollars a pop, I am not about to take someones word that what they do cannot be done better in Photoshop.

What can a color enhancer do that hue/saturation or lab color controls in Photoshop can’t? And with more control on the computer. If you introduce a filter’s effect into the raw file you are most likely stuck with it. Shoot it straight and you have more flexibility with what you can do to the photo.

I encourage new photographers to learn to see better early on in their development rather than depend upon a filter or a lens to make create for them.

If you only shoot film, you absolutely want these filters. If you shoot digital like I do, you really can save your money on them.

Spending more time paying attention to light and composition and less money on equipment and your photos will take a quantum leap forward. Don’t use a gadget as a crutch for when the light isn’t right. Instead enjoy the scenery and wait until conditions are right before you shoot.

Spend your money wisely,

Dan

ps. There is an exception to the above and that is the color polarizers made by Cokin and Singh Ray. The blue/yellow is the only one that seems to work well on a consistent basis and would seem to be worthwhile. The others make give unnatural colors that don’t suit the landscape. My advice, save your money.

~ by Dan Jurak on January 9, 2010.