ND & CPL Filter

[Smoulder]

Hi all Newbie here,

I was wondering if someone might be able to help me please, I've been googling ND Filters and CPL Filters. Would I be right in thinking that these are two and the same? Or have I got that wrong? Would someone please be able to explain the difference if I've got it wrong.

Thank you
Stacey )

 

[markta]

Hi Stacey, welcome to TP

Firstly, circular polarisers are effective for reducing reflections, whether for example you want to rid the water surface on a stream of light reflection to capture the moss or algae on the bed, they're also good for saturating the sky colour, if used at a 90 degree angle from the sun. On the filter itself, there is a "polarised effect" which you should line up with for eg the edge of a coastline

Polarisers darken the image that the camera sees, so standard shutter speeds are reduced a little, usually by 1.5 stops.

As for Neutral Density filters, they are commonly used for reducing the shutter speed further of the WHOLE scene, as the darkening effect occurs on 100% of the area of the filter. You can get different strengths of ND filter, depending on how bright the unfiltered scene is and how much you want to blur for eg the effect of water in a river..a 1 stop ND will not reduce the shutter speed as much as for example a 3 stop...

 

[Smoulder]

Ahh, right ok. Thank you Mark, so to get the effect with a river, the sea, waterfall ect I see alot and would like to try I'd need to get an ND filter? I've recently been brought a UV, CPL and a Star filter (which I can't seem to figure out, I take pictures with it but no stars). So the CPL will just change the saturation of the sky or make the water transparent?

I'm not so good at the technical side of things so thank you for your help.

)

 

[Suvv]

Have a look here:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-lens-filters.htm

The star filter will cause rays to come out of any light sources in the picture.
A bit like this:

 

[Smoulder]

Thank you Suvv, for some reason that didn't happen but I'm going out for a walk this afternoon so I'll try again.

Thanks again

)