You don’t take a photograph, you make it. –Ansel Adams

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Filters?

Yep, full of questions, but this is what a blog is useful for. Have figured out what a polarizer filter does, and a graduated density filter (for darkening a portion of the photo, typically the sky). However, what does a Neutral Density (ND) do? Yes, I understand it reduces the total exposure in regard to light, but why? Cannot a person also increase the shutter speed or ISO, or "stop down" the aperture? Possibly a use with fluid motion, where one wishes a long exposure, such as a waterfall or stream, and still retain selective DOF?

3 comments:

  1. Filters are still something I don't quite understand as well. From what I understand the ND filter is used to allow you to shoot in bright light, and still keep a slow shutter, or wide open aperture. Here is a link to an article that I thought did a good job of explaining more about the ND filter. http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Using-a-Neutral-Density-filter-4871

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  3. Great article. It pretty well confirmed what I suspected, but using a ND filter coupled with a slow shutter speed to remove moving objects from a shot was very interesting. Had never thought of that!

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