UV filter vs. Polarized filter

noiya99

Ok, call me stupid, I know ... but Im totally new to filters and I have a question that I thought maybe someone could shed a little light on. What is the best filter to go with when shooting outdoors portraits? Ive got portraits that I shot without a filter and I wanted to know if I were to shoot the same portrait with a UV filter and a polarized filter, what would be the big difference. ... anyone help me out. Thanks in advance.

-Rey

jbr13

noiya99 wrote:

Ok, call me stupid, I know ... but Im totally new to filters and I have a question that I thought maybe someone could shed a little light on. What is the best filter to go with when shooting outdoors portraits? Ive got portraits that I shot without a filter and I wanted to know if I were to shoot the same portrait with a UV filter and a polarized filter, what would be the big difference. ... anyone help me out. Thanks in advance.

-Rey

Noiya, With a UV filter, you won't see much difference if any. Its is usually used just to protect the front of your glass. A polarizer can darken the sky, remove reflections from water, and make foliage appear less shiny. Colour saturation is also significantly enhanced. You would have to make adjustments to your exposure since you will loose about 2 stops of light. Not sure if many people use polarizers for portrait work.


J

noiya99

Jason,

Thanks for the insight ... helps me out a bit. So let me ask you this: What is the best, well, reason for using a polarizer? Or are filters in general an overrated accessory? Thanks again.

-Rey

jbr13 wrote:

Noiya, With a UV filter, you won't see much difference if any. Its is usually used just to protect the front of your glass. A polarizer can darken the sky, remove reflections from water, and make foliage appear less shiny. Colour saturation is also significantly enhanced. You would have to make adjustments to your exposure since you will loose about 2 stops of light. Not sure if many people use polarizers for portrait work.


J

jbr13

I think now with DSLRs and Photoshop you can achieve what quite a few of the filters would do. A polarizer filter on the other hand I feel is a must have. A polarizer comes in very handy for several reasons.


Check these sites out

http://www.great-landscape-photography.com/polarizing-filter.html


http://www.geocities.com/cokinfiltersystem/polarizer.htm




J

mercphoto

noiya99 wrote:

Jason,

Thanks for the insight ... helps me out a bit. So let me ask you this: What is the best, well, reason for using a polarizer? Or are filters in general an overrated accessory? Thanks again.

-Rey

UV filters are over-rated and generally useless. Polarizers, however, are very useful. In fact, what a polarizer does to the image is something that you cannot re-create in post production (Photoshop, raw converter, etc.). Neutral density filters (not graduated neutral density filters) can allow you to take shots in bright light with slower shutter speeds or larger apertures (sometimes very useful).

Tee Why

Here is another site with examples of what polarizers can do.
http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/tutorials/polarizers.html

I generally use it for landscape/cityscape but not for portraits.

UV filters for dslr's are mainly used to protect things directly hitting the front element. They may increase flare though, especially if it's not multicoated. It would not add anything though.

Personally for portraits, I wouldn't and don't use any filters.

jbr13

See I use my Polarizer as a Neutral Density filter half the time as well. Stream shots in the mid day to get shutter speed down to give that soft moving water look. Plus the polarizer helps colors come out as well.


Examples

colourbox

Can anyone comment on how the utility of UV/skylight filters has changed with the switchover from film to digital? I thought I remembered reading somewhere that the way a filter altered the response of a digital sensor to colors is different or nonexistent, compared to what those filters did for film response.

This is academic to me since I stopped using all my UV/skylight filters some time ago, but I'm curious.

jogle

colourbox wrote:

I thought I remembered reading somewhere that the way a filter altered the response of a digital sensor to colors is different or nonexistent, compared to what those filters did for film response.

Seeing as your sensor is protected by a piece of glass that filters out nearly 100% of UV and IR light, (It's fairly thick, about 4 or 5 mm. I took the one out of my 10D and replaced it with an IR pass filter) Adding another thin UV filter does basically nothing in terms of response.