Sunday Read: Filters for Landscape Photography

Sunday Reads

Alex Parker 
21st August 2022

A layman's guide to filters for landscape photography.

To the (extremely) amateur photographer like me, it wasn’t immediately apparent why you would want to put another thing between your sensor and the outside world. Newer cameras have tremendous dynamic range, and the fact that filters are a physical object makes them seem archaic to the uninitiated.

Whilst it’s true that for a lot of genres of photography, camera technology coupled with advances in post-processing can make filters less vital, the same can’t be said for landscapes. Digital filters applied in post-processing can’t manipulate the light before it arrives at your sensor, so you’ll have to get it perfect in-camera - and that isn't easy when you're dealing with extreme contrasts between scenery and sky.

Circular, threaded filters are designed to screw onto the front of your lens, so all you need to know is the thread size. If you want to use a filter that has a bigger thread than your lens does, you can use step up rings to 'step up' your thread size and make the filter compatible.

Square filters attach via various custom systems and look a bit more frightening, but to be honest brands like LEE Filters have made it all a lot easier, and their kits will specify the thread size they’re compatible with.

There’s a whole arsenal of different filter options to get stuck into, varying in size, shape and purpose, but the three most popular types when it comes to landscape photography are as follows:

- Neutral density (ND)
- Graduated Neutral density (GND)
- Circular polariser (CPL)

ND Filters

Designed to reduce the intensity of light before it hits your sensor, ND filters help you deal with harsh lighting and awkward compositions, and in doing so allow you to shoot longer exposures, resulting in more vibrant colours. For this reason, they’re extremely popular with photographers shooting water - allowing them to bring the light down, expose for longer and get that dreamy water effect.

GND Filters

These operate the same as NDs but for only a portion of the filter, with a transition in the middle somewhere. They let you darken a part of your image without affecting the rest of It. If you’re shooting a bright sky, a GND lets you darken the sky to bring it in line with the naturally darker foreground – extremely useful during blue and golden hour where contrast is at its most pronounced. These filters are handy when shooting cities at night too, you can darken building lights to capture the stars in the sky!

CPL Filters

A circular polariser/linear filter is used to get rid of reflections, offering clearer surfaces and more transparent water. Landscape photography is all about light and composition, so being able to cut down on glare and clean up your image is valuable. Removing glare and reflections from surrounding scenery cuts distraction from the image, helping you focus the eye on the parts of the composition you want to stand out the most.

 

That’s really all you need to get you started. For someone like me, learning on an old Nikon D80 DSLR, filters were something of a gamechanger when I was trying to take soppy images of sunsets to litter about my flat. They're inexpensive for the difference they can make, and are well worth investigating!

You can find our full range of filters, step up rings, systems and accessories here: https://www.hireacamera.com/accessories/filtration/