questions about filters

john3eblover · Mar 29, 2005

I have recently bought a few filters, and i'm wondering how and when to use them. I purchased a circular polarizing filter, and UV filter, and a Tiffen Red 1 [25] filter. When should i use these? Can i use more than one of them at a time? How will they affect black and white film, and color film?

thanks

panocho · Mar 29, 2005

The polarizer helps with color saturation and also neutralizes reflections on glasses. It is one of the most enjoyable filters to use, and also one of the most preferred by many. Circular ones were created for AF cameras, but the effect is the same as the non-circular polarizes.
The UV is used mainly to protect the lens. Most of the times you won't notice its effect. A lot of people have always one all their lenses. The Skylight works similarly, but the effect is slightly more noticeable.
The red filter is intended mainly for B&W photography: helps with contrasts. You can also use it in color photography for creativity (your photos will turn out "covered" in red, obviously).
You can use more at a time, but beware with vigneting (is that how you write it?): it depends on the lens you use, but normally it can happen using three filters -or more, of course.
If you use a SLR you shouldn't worry much about light metering; if not, then you have to keep in mind that the filters will normally reduce the amount of light the film will receive.
I would recommend you to learn to use them one by one. This is a very attractive part of photography. Practice a lot and read something. You can begin here:

http://www.tiffen.com/camera_filters.htm

Have fun!

ksmattfish · Mar 29, 2005

Besides increasing color saturation and eliminating glare, a polarizer will darken blue skies from cyan to almost navy. Hree's a thread about polarizing filters.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3039

A red #25 is for contrast control with BW, and can also be used with infrared BW film. It will darken blue skies, while leaving clouds white. It gives the effect of darkening anything green or blue, and lightening reddish objects. If you shot a photo of red apples sitting on a green table cloth in BW with no filter, the tones of the red apples and green table cloth would look very similar in the BW image. With a red filter the apples would be much lighter than the table cloth.

In this photo I used a red #25 to darken the foliage, which was light green in reality, and probably would have come out middle gray or slightly lighter without the filter.

camera: Anniversary Speed Graphic w/ 150mm Schneider lens, #25 filter
film: Tmax 100
scanned from 8x10 Ilford glossy FB