One of the secrets to Instagram’s success is that it put filters where amateur smart phone photographers can see and use them easily and quickly, allowing people to turn mediocre photos into something they thought were interesting and good enough to share and be proud of. The right filter effect applied by an iPhone can process any image to add life, color, and sophistication. You can also do this with any post production software, but it’s more interesting to try it with camera lens filters on your DSLR camera.
Filters were initially used with film cameras for white balancing and help control glare and other undesirable features of an environment. Digital cameras can do all that for you now, but camera lens filters are not completely obsolete. They just have narrower, more artistic functions. The most popular lens filters you should consider include a UV Filter, a (Circular) Polarizer, and either a Graduated Neutral Density Filter or several specific ND filters of different densities.
UV Filter
A cheap UV filter is good enough to protect your lens from damage if you bang or drop it, and if you get a very gentle one it won’t impact your images at all. However, more expensive options filter out a lot of UV light and give photos a blueish tint, especially if there’s a lot of natural sunlight. UV Filters don’t reduce the amount of light that hits sensors, but they can do a mild impersonation of the Hudson Instagram filter.
Polarizer
This is the big one for artistic effects. Polarizing filters come in a range of strengths but they all share two features. First, they amp up the power and pop of natural colors, achieved by reducing the amount of reflected light that reaches the camera’s sensor. Sky blues and nature greens appear radiant. Second, they decrease the amount of light reaching the sensor by two to three f-stops, making photos much darker.
Circular polarizers are ideal because they let you adjust the amount of polarization by adjusting the filter ring. Your other option is to purchase multiple different levels of filters. You may have to experiment to figure out what level of polarization is best for various settings and your preferred aesthetic. Once you figure that out you can create images that mimic a range of Instagram filters, although the effect of a polarization filter is difficult to reproduce perfectly even with skilled photo effects.
Neutral Density Filter
ND filters reduce the amount of light that hits the sensor. You might want this because you need to use a longer exposure, when you can’t stop down enough to control the brightness, or when you want to create a few unique effects. ND filters are graduated, blocking the most light at the top of the frame, which creates dramatic lighting that most artificial filter applications struggle to replicate.
You can get a graduated ND filter that has multiple settings, or purchase several individual filters of different densities. One popular use is to reduce the amount of light when doing a long exposure so you can make moving objects blur or even disappear depending on the length of the exposure. This effect is also useful for shooting moving water and is worth taking the time to experiment.
Instagram’s filters revolutionized mobile smartphone photography by increasing the average quality of photos for the average person. You can achieve similar improvements and better effects without cheating simply by using these camera lens filters.
