My old filters

[MikeBcos]

I've only had my DSLR for a few days so I am still learning digital photography. I've been digging through my old 35mm equipment and have pulled out all my old filters, do I really need them? Are the 81B and soften filters any use today when those adjustments are built into Photoshop? I know my red filter for black and white is useless but the Hoya circular polarizer does produce some nice results.

What filters do you use with digital photography? Or do you just shoot Raw and add all your filter effects in post processing?

 

[benhasajeep48 47]

Definately keep the Circular Polarizer!!!

I have all my filters as I still shoot film as well (so far anyway). But anything you do before photoshop will save you time. May not be much though.

As for me I get the most use out of CP, ND's, and graduated ND's. Except for a couple for Black and white thats about all I have anyway.

 

[MikeBcos]

Oh, I won't throw any of them away, in the few days I have been shooting DSLR I've found a lot of things about it that I'm not sure I like. In many ways it is far superior to film but I really think that film does have many advantages over digital. I haven't shot any film in 10 years (marriage and new family took over my life) but I really think I will use both film and digital in the future. 35mm will be replaced with digital but I will be shooting medium and large format film, especially black and white, digital just doesn't give me what I want in black and white.

Now, if someone can tell me how to convert one of my old Polaroid Land cameras to large format I would be very happy.

 

[shed301]

my lens's usually have their polarisering filters on almost all the time... the *soften* filter i'm asuming it's a diffuser filter then i'd be inclined to keep it for wedding's, potriats and the like.

 

[tirediron]

Keep all your old filters. Don't get caught up in the whole "digital" thing; really the only fundamental difference from a photographic point of view is the fact that you get to reuse the film. Almost everything that applied in the days of film applies to digital.

 

[JerryPH]

Almost everything that applied in the days of film applies to digital.

Except the basics like in film we expose to the right and in digital we expose for the midtones and take great care to not blowout the highlights.

 

[Steph]

Except the basics like in film we expose to the right and in digital we expose for the midtones and take great care to not blowout the highlights.

I know it is off topic but did you get that right? I do the exact opposite (I shoot mainly landscapes). When I shoot slides I meter for a midtone and use ND grad filters to maintain details in the highlights (in the sky more often than not). For digital (shooting RAW), I tend to expose to the right as described here.

 

[MikeBcos]

That article on exposing right is fascinating. As a newcomer to digital it says I lot I didn't know. Now I understand the flashing, over exposed highlights I have had on several images.

 

[Garbz]

Red filter is still very usable. Taking a photo with a red filter and converting to black and white still produces higher quality than taking a normal photo and removing the blue / green channels and converting to black and white.

It's all about noise not being uniform between colour channels.