Lens Filters....Which ones or dont bother? (1 Viewer)

[Mack100]

Would make an interesting, separate, debate. Is Photoshop "Cheating"?

No more than "dodging and burning" was in the darkroom days. Also altering mixtures and times during developing for different effects.
Hate to sound like an old timer misery but all that stuff required a great knowledge of photographic chemistry.
I actually quite enjoy a bit of PP, particularly when making a monochrome conversion.

 

[Go Humberto!]

Re. Photoshop & Cheating.

The camera can't replicate what the human-eye can see. That's because it's the human brain that "sees", they eye is a lens, nothing more.
Memory adds a bit more to the image after you've stopped looking.
No camera can deal with the huge range of colours, contrast and tone in many situations. They need help.

That's why 99.999999% of all photos ever taken look rather disappointing (Not counting some of the awful subject matter people seem to think is valid for a photo).

So I see Photoshop (or any Post-Processing) as a way to make a photo look like how you remembered it. HDR (High Dynamic Range) helps a lot (several images taken of the same scene at different exposures and "stacked" into one).

I took a photo at Stourhead gardens on Sunday. It was right into the sun, reflecting off the ripples on the lake. The building was hidden in trees, in the shade.

The actual JPEG image of the scene looks awful, my camera just couldn't deal with the massive contrast range.

So I "'shopped it". It may be cheating but I got a photo that looked like how it felt (it's still not as amazing as how it looked to my eye.. my LED screen isn't bright enough).

This is what a camera does when confronted by bright sun, reflecting off a lake, it "rounds everything down to an "average grey""
"Average Grey" is what even the most expensive cameras are programmed to produce and why most photos look rather.....grey.

And this is cheating. 3 images "stacked" and Camera RAW used to pull detail out of the sky and shadows. Yes, it's a bit OTT but it's still not as OTT as the scene I remember.

If I had a "pocket camera" I'd start by putting it on the "Vivid" mode. Most have that mode and it helps make photos "pop" a bit. It can look a bit OTT.. but so what? You probably remember it being a vivid moment.

 

[Wee Bold Davy]

I've been into photography since around 1980 and have always had a skylight 1A filter on all my lenses, more for protection than anything else. Some say it has a slight warming effect on the photos but it is so minimal I defy anyone to spot it.
I feel sorry for youngsters these days as they don't need to think about exposure or focusing, fast film, slow film, getting it right in camera and not knowing what you've got until the film is processed.
I was self employed as a photographer for 7 years in the late '80s and early '90s.
By 2007 I had fully embraced digital and was ready to go full time again just when the economy went belly-up, so it went on hold. By 2016 I'd had to upgrade a lot of my gear as technology was moving at such a speed only to find that anyone who has a half decent camera fancies themselves as a photographer! There's always someone willing to do a (sub standard) job for less than I was charging in 1989! Saying that back in 2007 I was quoting the same as I was in Scotland in 1989 and locals here were saying I was too expensive, even though I was told I was too cheap in 1989!
Think it will just have to remain as an expensive hobby I'm sorry to say

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