Take a look at the size of the lens diameter on your camera. What is it?
Probably 55 mm, and that is not good enough.
The first thing I did with my new camera was to check the
lens size. It was 55 mm too. The second thing I did was to rake through my
collection of stepping rings to screw on to the end of the lens to bring the
diameter up to 62 mm. Why? Many reasons.
The most obvious reason was to make the new camera lens
compatible with my box of photographic filters, accumulated over the years. The
vast majority of these are 62 mm, which is a good size as it is larger than most
35 mm camera lenses, so will not produce a vignetting effect if you stack a few
of them together, such as a polarizer and a +1 magnifier.
The first filter to have is called a Skylight 1A. This filter
does make the sky a little deeper, but the main reason to have it, is as a
sacrificial piece of glass, so that your good, expensive lens does not get
scratched. Skylight 1A’s are very cheap.
One of the nicest filter effects is what is called “center
spot soft focus”. Now this just means the center is in focus and the edges are
nicely soft and blurred. This effect is used by portrait and wedding
photographers all over the world to produce that wonderful “romantic”
photograph.
Now to use this filter. If you have an SLR (single lens
reflex) film camera or a digital, you are actually looking through the lens when
you are focusing and What You See Is What You Get (the WYSIWYG principle,
mentioned many times in these columns). Set your lens on the largest aperture
you can (around f 5.6 or f 4 is fine). Focus on your subject,
keeping the face in the center of the screen. Now bring up your magic soft focus
filter and place it over the lens and what do you see? The face is in focus and
the edges are all blurred! Try some different f stops as well (it makes
the center spot larger or smaller) and record the details in your trusty
notebook … which you take with you at all times!
You can also use these filters with any compact point and
shoot camera, but it is a little more hit and miss. The reason being there’s no
WYSIWYG with compacts. What you have to do is position the center of the filter
over the lens and, while keeping it there, bring the camera up to your eye,
compose the shot and then shoot. Takes some fiddling and manual dexterity and
take a few shots as you are really flying blind.
The next one is the polarizer. I have mentioned polarizers
many times before, but the difference between polarized sunlit shots and
unpolarized is incredible. The depth of color when you polarize is fantastic. As
you rotate the polarizing filter, the reflections on any shiny surface, be that
grass, trees, water or whatever, just disappear, leaving the undiluted bold
color.
Soft romantic effects can be produced in many ways, and here
are a few tried and true methods, and the first is super inexpensive as well.
Just gently breathe on the Skylight 1A filter just before you take the shot.
Your warm breath will impart a “mist” to produce a wonderfully misty portrait,
or that early morning mist look for landscapes. Remember that the “misting” only
lasts a few seconds, so make sure you have the camera pre-focused and ready to
shoot. If you have control over the aperture, try around f 4 as well.
Another interesting result is by smearing Vaseline on the
same Skylight 1A and seeing the different effects you get. Do not smear the
Vaseline on the end of your lens. It is almost impossible to get off without
washing in hot soapy water, something you can do with a filter, but not with
your lens.
There are many more filters, colored effects, graduated effects, star cross
and more. Photography should be fun. Try a filter or two this weekend.
