Nature Photographer Magazine



	© James Murphy, Field Contributor

Article and Images by
James Murphy
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I can recall a time, as a beginning photographer, when I was in a filter fascination stage. I would look at filter ads in photo magazines and be excited about the possibility of recreating the various special effects that were visually presented in the ads. And so, I bought filters. Star filters and rainbow filters, fog filters and filters that could turn one image into multiple images in a single shot. At last, something that could spice up my average looking pictures and turn them into something that would grab peoples’ attention. I would carry my arsenal of filters with me when I would go out shooting pictures. After the film was processed, I would sit down and look through my pictures in anticipation of the results. However, even though some of the pictures were more dramatic, the others just looked too artificial and gimmicky as the effects were actually being a distraction to the main subjects in the images. So, many of the filters ended up getting left behind the subsequent times I would go out shooting pictures.

Nowadays, I use only a handful of the most usable filter types (polarizing filter, skylight, graduated neutral density, warming/enhancing filters) when I’m out photographing. By taking the time to read up on the realistic aspects of light, I can now use certain filters more effectively when presenting my interpretation of a subject on film. For instance, by using a polarizing filter to reduce the reflection of light on leaves, just as one could reduce reflections in windows, I was able to increase color saturation and even apparent sharpness in the final picture.



	© James Murphy, Field Contributor

Nature can help produce many wonderful effects on film without needing filters. The next time you’re out photographing, try pointing your camera at a pond of water that has wind or animal generated ripples in it and see how the surrounding world reflected in it is transformed into a mosaic or impressionistic looking picture. Since a star filter can diffuse the overall picture as it applies the star effect to everything in the picture, a more realistic and desirable natural star effect is actually best created by letting something like a tree or rock partially obscure the sun and using a moderately small aperture setting on your lens (f11, f16, f22) to allow the sun’s light to travel along the edges of the aperture blades to give you a nice star effect. Do you want a diffused image that a fog filter would normally produce? Besides using a lens with dirty lens elements, you can try to breath on the front of your lens during cool temperatures. The sudden temperature change of your warm breath on a cool lens should cause the glass to fog up. Please note, however, that doing that in a very cold environment could lead to ice instead of merely condensation forming on your lens. Therefore, you may want to have a skylight filter attached and breath on that instead of directly on the lens element. A small mist or spritzer bottle from an arts and crafts store can be used to create a couple other types of effects.



	© James Murphy, Field Contributor

Beads of water shot very close up can give you multiple fisheye types of representations of the surrounding environment and photographing a water droplet hanging from an object with a macro lens configuration can yield a fisheye effect of whatever is behind the droplet. You can even add a rainbow to a subject that is exactly opposite of the position of the sun by misting the air around or behind the subject (it may be best to use your garden hose and a variable spray nozzle to create enough of a misting spray) which should create a rainbow. Experiment with varied sun positions as well as amount and direction of mist in relation to your subject and camera (careful about getting your photo gear wet—it may survive a slight dewy mist but it’s not waterproof—wipe it dry ASAP). Various focal lengths of lenses will also capture different amounts of the rainbow effect. I’ve used lenses from moderate wide angle to telephoto.

Other possible effects that you can create include using winter frost on glass to create a soft border around an outdoor subject when shooting through a window from inside as well as zooming during exposure if you are using a zoom lens. The possibilities are almost endless!



	© James Murphy, Field Contributor

Although filters are very useful in many situations to enhance the presentation of subjects or feelings in photographs, I often find myself trying creative effects totally inspired by nature.

Ed. Note: Filters behave slightly differently on digital cameras than they do with film due to limited dynamic range. Because the meter and histogram approximate luminosity, and don’t look at individual color channels (generally), using a warming or cooling filter to shift white balance away from neutral can lead to clipped data in red or blue channels. When shooting digitally, these warm and cool light effects can be captured after the fact much more effectively in Photoshop using levels/curves. Alternatively, graduated neutral density and polarizing filters can help save image data in scenes that are too contrasty.

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