Filters used for Fall Colors? (Page 4): Don't know why you would need filters. I've never thought that one was necessary for fall photos.

DebAnn Loc: Toronto

bigguytf wrote:

Will be taking some Fall Color pics over the next Month. Does taking these pics require any special filters?
Does bright sun, clear skies or cloudy skies affect the type of filter used.

I normally tries to keep filters simple, I have UV, Polarized, and a neutral density filter currently in my bag.

Thanks in advance for any input

Don't know why you would need filters. I've never thought that one was necessary for fall photos.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

burkphoto wrote:

No special filters are *required*. However:

UV filters are only helpful above about 6000 feet above sea level. On the East Coast of the USA, only Mount Mitchell in NC is that high... and I've never needed a UV filter on my digital camera there. Below that, there's not enough UV to affect digital camera sensors. Film, yes, digital, no. (Experiment... camera sensor technologies do vary). If you're trying to protect a lens, get a clear glass protector made for that purpose.

When you use them to reduce reflections from water and foliage, circular polarizers are needed for digital photography, as opposed to the old kind we used with film. A CPL will also darken skies at right angles to the sun. It *may* help saturate colorful foliage in full sun at certain angles.

ND filters are primarily useful for reducing light intensity — to use longer shutter speeds or wider apertures, or both. ND filters are used for the "fake felt painting silky water" effect that has become a cliché at "art" shows. Cinematographers use them in bright sun to maintain 1/48 second (180° shutter angle) speed for 24.000 fps video, while still using a reasonably wide aperture for shallow depth of field. Still photographers use them to isolate subjects against the background with a wide aperture. I keep ND8, ND64, and ND1000 filters in my bag...

Graduated ND filters are useful for darkening bright skies without affecting foreground exposures. "Star" filters are another cliché category, turning bright light sources and specular reflections into multi-point star reflections. Soft focus filters are useful for creating dream-like images. Beyond those, there are plenty of other cheesy filter attachments from the 1960s that create cliché psychedelic poster effects. Way beyond those, there is Photoshop...

MOST special effects we once did with color filters may now be achieved in post-production of raw files. Good post-production software is well-equipped with a wide array of tools and filters for nearly infinite control over effects that used to be monotonic.

My personal preference for fall foliage is to capture the color when leaves are wet with rain or dew, early in the morning or in fog. Nature is my favorite filter.

No special filters are *required*. However: br br... (show quote)

Mt. Washington in NH is 6,288, and Clingman's Dome, which straddles the NC-TN border is 6,643, Mt Craig in NC is 6,647, then there is 6,621-foot Mount Guyot, 6,611-foot Balsam Cone, 6,593-foot Mount LeConte, 6,571-foot Mount Gibbes, 6,475-foot Potato Hill, 6,417-foot Mount Chapman, and 6,410-foot Richland Balsam. NH is the outlier - of the others 5 are in the Black Mts, and 4 are in the Great Smoky Mts. Near Richland Balsam, there are several others that are over 6,000 ft - Black Balsam Knob - 6,214, Mt Hardy - 6,120, Reinhart Knob - 6,080, Grassy Cove Top, Tennent Mt, Shining Rock and Sam Knob - 6040, Cold Mt - 6030.

Also, every digital camera has IR/UV blocking glass over the sensor.

Otherwise I agree with everything you wrote . . .

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

Bill_de wrote:

Polarizer. Anything else can be done in post, I think.

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True. If you are near a waterfall a neutral density filter could come in handy on a sunny day.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Gene51 wrote:

My apologies - I wrote UV filter but clearly was thinking Circular Polarizer (CPL). Please don't hold it against me

I think if someone holds a cir-pol filter against your skin it’s harmless.

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

boberic wrote:

The good thing about fall colors is that no filters are necessary to capture the display that nature supplies. Sometimes I use a clear protective filter. But thats all. These are "filter free"

Spectacularly beautiful 🧡💙❤️💛💜💚

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

billnikon wrote:

Add an Enhancing Filter.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/57035-REG/Tiffen_82EF1_82mm_Enhancing_Filter.html?sts=pi&pim=Y
I like overcast sky's, I find this shaded light enhances and deepens the colors when properly exposed.

Magnificent 💢❤️❤️💢

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

bigguytf wrote:

Will be taking some Fall Color pics over the next Month. Does taking these pics require any special filters?
Does bright sun, clear skies or cloudy skies affect the type of filter used.

I normally tries to keep filters simple, I have UV, Polarized, and a neutral density filter currently in my bag.

Thanks in advance for any input

A polarizer is a good choice.

MTDesigns Loc: Corryton,Tenn.

I have had good luck changing the white balance .

nervous2 Loc: Provo, Utah

Miss my travels to Vermont to capture fall colors when I lived in NY.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

bigguytf wrote:

Will be taking some Fall Color pics over the next Month. Does taking these pics require any special filters?
Does bright sun, clear skies or cloudy skies affect the type of filter used.

I normally tries to keep filters simple, I have UV, Polarized, and a neutral density filter currently in my bag.

Thanks in advance for any input

Use a circular polarizer if the sun is at or close to right angles. This will make the colors pop and take glare off of leave etc.. I also like to shoot about a half a stop to a full stop under exposed.

Alafoto Loc: Montgomery, AL

bigguytf wrote:

Will be taking some Fall Color pics over the next Month. Does taking these pics require any special filters?
Does bright sun, clear skies or cloudy skies affect the type of filter used.

I normally tries to keep filters simple, I have UV, Polarized, and a neutral density filter currently in my bag.

Thanks in advance for any input

At one time I had an "enhancing filter" made by Tiffen. It enhanced all the warm colors, red most of all, and was kind of cool when used with my first EOS, a model 630 (film of course) and film developed at a one hour photolab. It was supposed to be coated with a metal called didmium. Of no use in the digital age, naturally, and lost it long ago anyway.

A polarizer to reduce glare and make colors appear more saturated would be good to use under many circumstances.

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

bigguytf wrote:

Will be taking some Fall Color pics over the next Month. Does taking these pics require any special filters?
Does bright sun, clear skies or cloudy skies affect the type of filter used.

I normally tries to keep filters simple, I have UV, Polarized, and a neutral density filter currently in my bag.

Thanks in advance for any input

B+W Filters and Hoya Filters make a "red-enhancer" filter designed for what you are looking. These filters are designed to accentuate reds and browns and will give you very concentrated fall colors.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

Alafoto wrote:

At one time I had an "enhancing filter" made by Tiffen. It enhanced all the warm colors, red most of all, and was kind of cool when used with my first EOS, a model 630 (film of course) and film developed at a one hour photolab. It was supposed to be coated with a metal called didmium. Of no use in the digital age, naturally, and lost it long ago anyway.

A polarizer to reduce glare and make colors appear more saturated would be good to use under many circumstances.

Not totally true about no longer useful in the digital age. It can be still used for regular autumn photography even though the effect can be simulated in PP. As I said, I am a fan of doing everything possible in camera before any post processing.

The biggest use of didymium filters now is used in glass making and astrophotography The didymium selectively blocks the yellowish light at 589 nm emitted by hot sodium (sodium is used in glass making). In astrophotography, it helps to cut out the sodium vapor street lights during photography in light polluted areas.

kenArchi Loc: Seal Beach, CA

Add the Singh Ray color intesifier to the cpl. Pure deep rich colors.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

wdross wrote:

Not totally true about no longer useful in the dig... (show quote)

What some folk don't seem to comprehend is that a colour enhancing filter will indeed enhance specific colours while desaturating, neutralizing, or simply stated, muddying up other colours, A filter that is designed to enhance yellows and reds may gray down the blue sky. This is because the filter colour-biases the entire scene. The leaves on a birch tree may be enhanced in an autumn scene but the gray bark will record as yellow/red.

I have some experience with didymium filters. In my industrial photography, I oftentimes find myself shootg in factories, warehouses and other industrial installations that are lighted with sodium vapour lamps. Prior to the advent of high output LED lamps, sodium vapour lamps were extremely popular in the industrial environment in that they produce more lumens per watt. Much of this light is still in use. These lamps have discontinues spectrums so they played havoc with colour films so many layers of gel filters, on the lens, were employed to somewhat normalize the colour rendition. Without the filtration, the film would produce a significant green, cyan, or cyan/gree shift. Sometimes a FLD or FLB filter usually used to correct for some fluorescent lighting would facilitate enough correction to enable tweaking in the printing of colour negatives. Transparency fils were still difficult to correct with massive filter packs. Enter didymium filters! Some corrections were notable but backgrounds, people, and other elements in the scene aside from the subject were seriously muddied in colour rendition. The extent of the effect of these filters is determined by their thickness. The thicker filter had more artifacts. I am sure these filers have an important function in scientific photography, medical imaging, photomicrography, and astrological photoghay and some practical usage in landscape work but there are caveats.

Oftentimes, with all kinds of filters, the transmission data, as to which segment of the spectrum are transmitted or blocked, look good on paper but because of variations on film, digital sensors and all kinds of odd and mixed light sources, the data do not always translate into the good colour correctness. Usually, some experimentation is required to zero in on the exact method.

Not surprisingly, in digital photography, I have been able to solve most colour balance issues with a custom white balance or even an automated white balance adjustment, even under what was previously, with film, a massive headache. As for colour intensification via reflection control and negation, the CPL filter is my favourite tool- a good filter has no artifacts, all colours remain true and saturated, and minor tweaks can be easily applied in post-processing.

If you don't like the effect of a CPL filter, or it is not necessary under certain lighting conditions, simply do not use it. In my own work, there are many occasions where I have to shoot a particular out-of-doors scene, an architectural exterior, or something on an industrial or construction site, and I have no choice as to the time of day. Even in the studio, under controlled conditions, there are many items that requre precise reflection control so suffice it to say that my collection of CPL filters are well used. I even had to replace a few that were just worn out, had delaminated, or just fell apart from hard usage on hazardous industrial sites.

Attached is a shot of a commemorative postage stamp collection and accompanying book. This is not a montage shot- the stamps were carefully mounted in small blocks of Foam-Cor and suspend on a makeshift rack. The stamp is printed in a caly-coated stock that is very reflective. The CPL filter saved the day and a hold lot of extensive retouching.