# Filters for DSLR



## spitfire (Feb 10, 2007)

I'm thinking of spending up to £50 on some filters for the D60. Polarising, graduating ND or whatever. What should I be looking at and where's a good place to buy from. TIA


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## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

What lenses you got these days?


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## spitfire (Feb 10, 2007)

rmorgan84 said:


> What lenses you got these days?


Nikkor 18-55 vr and Tamron LD Di 70-300 Tele macro


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## Edward101 (Jun 5, 2009)

I use Cokin filters, warehouseexpress.com are great people, just bought a new camera from them, and if your not too far away from them its a great shop/showroom to go too as they have pretty much everything in stock :thumb:

But if you have photoshop or a program similar I would use that for filters as its just as good really ad so much easier. Its quite a pain as I have to take of the UV filter.. then screw on the cokin filter holder therefore the actual lens isnt protected.. which is a little pain like when I was on the coast in scotland a few month ago.

Cokin or Lee filters would get my vote though :thumb:


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## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

spitfire said:


> Nikkor 18-55 vr and Tamron LD Di 70-300 Tele macro


They aren't the best lenses in the world, sure you can produce pleasing photos but if you were to analyse the images from a technical perspective there will be lots of aberrations, softness, distortions, etc... for that reason i'd just suggest getting the cheapest filters you can find.

If you read a magazine article they will preach that you should get the best quality filters as you don't want to sacrifice image quality. Which makes perfect sense if you're talking about pro lenses worth £1000+, but for your needs and your lenses it's overkill.

Think carbon boots and roofs on cars. Yes the weight saving makes sens if you've got an M3, Ferrari, etc, but if you've got a corsa....


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## Crafty (Aug 4, 2007)

Decide which filters you want.

A circular polariser (must be a circular one, otherwise you may have problems with auto focus) will help you cut down reflections and get some saturation in bright blue skies.

ND (Neutral Density) filters will let you restrict the amount of light coming in, so you can get some flexibility with shutter speeds. A quick tip that I've seen people do is buy a glass from a welding helmet for a couple of quid, its reckoned that they amount to a 10 stop filter. You have colour cast (i.e. pictures come out green) to deal with but post processing can deal with that and for a couple of quid its worth a play. There are different grades, all this means is they stop more light - e.g. 2 stop, 4 stop, 8 stop. You also see them as 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 ND filters. I dont know what this is a measurement of exactly, but same thin applies, the bigger the number the "darker" the glass.

A graduated ND (or GND) is the same as above but is only coloured at the top, the idea is to saturate the colour of the sky or help control exposure of a very bright sky without darkening the foreground. Again you get different grades. With GNDs you also get "hard" and "soft" - this is basically how gradual the change from the darkened to clear part is.

Circular Polariser and ND filters you can buy screw ins. I have a Kood polariser, about £20 and its fine.

GNDs are a bit of a different story, because they have the graduation across them this will never be in the right place - on a screw in filter this would be in a fixed place relative to your lens. For this reason most GNDs you see are "square" filters - i.e. a square piece of glass, this fits into a holder which fits to the lens.. the benefit here is that you can move the filter up and down, therefore changing where the graduation is in your shot. The holder will also take more than one filter, so you can use more than one at a time (known as stacking).

You'll also get lots of other filters in the "square" type.

From what I've read cokin are cheap, but their GNDs cause weird colour casts, for that reason quite a few people have dumped them.
Lee are generally accepted as very very good, but you pay for it.

A popular solution seems to be Hitech filters. UK made, and are a reasonable price. Take a look here : http://www.teamworkphoto.com/index....ath=78&zenid=36f645f84d880a19264ba647adda34b0

A final note - the holders come in two pieces, the first is an adapter ring, this is the bit that screws to your lens, the second is the holder itself. Lee and Hitech ones are expensive, but because all the stuff is interchangeable you can buy cheaper holders and use with the other filters.. A holder and adapter ring is going to cost about £15 from here: http://www.premier-ink.co.uk/photographic/square-filters/p-type/-c-60_361_363.html

Note cokin "P" is for 85mm sized filters. You can get 100mm filters but the cost goes up and with your lenses on (I assume) a crop sensor you should be okay. If you had a UWA lens you may see some vignetting going on, but there are solutions to that..


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## Crafty (Aug 4, 2007)

blimey that got a bit long.. !

just saw that teamworkphoto are doing a deal at the moment 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 ND and the same in GND for £50+vat.
I got my kood polariser from http://www.crookedimaging.co.uk/ - decent service from them.


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## bretti_kivi (Apr 22, 2008)

nice post. I think I'll link to that from the buying guide, if you don't mind?


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## mattsbmw (Jul 20, 2008)

Cokin or lee are considered the best, cheaper ones can be obtained on ebay


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## Crafty (Aug 4, 2007)

brett link it by all means, Im no expert though so I've probably missed a few things !

The hitech filters are made by www.fformat.co.uk - stacks of different colour ones there if you are looking for effects.

If you do want to use a holder on a UWA lens you can get wide angle holders - advantage is vignetting is reduced to very wide focal lengths (10/12mm) or totally removed at these lengths on crop cameras. The disadvantage is they normally only hold one filter, so no stacking.
I have seen some people who buy a cheap holder, then hack it about to solve vignetting.

For the science geeks wiki has an article on NDs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ND_filter

Typical cokin colour cast problems:
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=141957
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/627030/0

__
https://flic.kr/p/2372603825
http://steffanharries.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/cokins-not-so-neutral-neutral-density-filters/


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## bretti_kivi (Apr 22, 2008)

that's OK, I think you covered the majority. I'd heard about the casts, which is why I was looking at that pack from Teamwork last week 

And I also want to use these on a Tammy 10-24, which is why the UWA stuff was in my head when I wrote it. I also think that's why I need really to go for 100mm filters.

Bret


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## spitfire (Feb 10, 2007)

Thanks for all that information guys. I totally agree with rmorgan84, the lenses I have are cheap, they give me good enough results though as I'm only an amateur and not really in a position to spend vast amounts on top class glass. I have a cokin filter holder from the old days. I'll dig it out and see if the rings I have fit the lenses I now use, in which case I may only need the filters themselves. Cheers:thumb:


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