Fall Filter?

My wife and I are planning a 4 day trek into the mountains in the fall and was wondering if anyone could make a good suggestion for a fall foliage filter? I'd ideally be taking shots of trees and of smaller mountain falls. Would a polarizer be the best option or no? Thanks for your help!

--Dave

Polarizer. I use one for most all daytime shots.


Kent in SD

There are many varieties of color enhancing filters but, IMO, they more often than not affect the image adversely (making the image look too manipulated). As Kent mentioned, a good polarizer is a great recommendation, but for color enhancement I prefer to work with and enhance individual elements (in PS) as necessary to preserve a more neutral overall effect.

Since just about every typical color/warming/cooling filter can be easily simulated in PS (and with better control of it), I wouldn't worry about those. The ones you might bother taking are, as mentioned, a polarizer and perhaps an ND filter or two. These could be especially useful if you want to use long exposures for water. I have a polarizer that loses about 1.5 stops, and a 2-stop ND filter. That gives me about 1.5 or 3.5 stops of light loss so I can increase my exposure time. Works great for waterfalls.

A polarizer is a nice adjunct for color. However, at higher altitudes the light is less scattered and has a high blue component, so polarization should be used carefully to avoid very dark skies and blocked shadows.

A nice filter to have is an 81-b or c. These are warming filters that help to reduce the blue cast. ND-grad filters will be very helpful, too. I have found that two and three-stop soft NDG's work the best in the mountains.

Enjoy your trip!

-PB

Could you spell out NDG for me? Im new and trying to catch the terms as quick as I can but Im still learning lol, thanks! And thanks for all the input, the last thing I wanna do is schedule a photography trip and come back with bad pictures!

NDG is short for Neutral Density Graduated. These filters are rectangular. If you look at one, they appear clear at one end and then become gradually darker. Go Here for lots of good info and examples.

-PB

I'm real fond of polarizers for knocking the glare off foliage- summer or fall. Color. textures and detail are a lot more visible without the reflections.

Usually, "NDG" filters are referred to as "GND" filters, or just "grads". If you search for them on here, David, there are quite a few threads debating their merits. I'd definitely look at those. As someone who is familiar with doing the effect on the computer, and not using the actual filters, I'd suggest holding off on buying them until you're sure you want them. Or possibly buy some cheap ones if you can find them, just to try out (because cheap ones probably won't give great results).

I'd think with digital, you'd have to find yourself doing quite a bit of grad work before it would make sense to invest in good GND filters. But that's just my opinion, based partly on the fact that I actually enjoy post processing in PS. Here're some threads with lots of different opinions :

Discussion 1
Discussion 2
Discussion 3
Discussion 4

Hi Dave,

I always pack;

1. Polarising Filter (Circular) – (HOYA)
2. Warm-Up Polarising Filter (this is a combination of an 81A Warm-Up Filter and a Circukar Polarising Filter in one) – (HOYA)
3. Graduated Neutral Density Filter (Hard) in 0.3, 0.6, 0.9 (LEE)
4. Graduated Neutral Density Filter (Soft) in 0.3, 0.6, 0.9 (LEE)

If I have waterfalls in the equation then I will pack

5. Neutral Density Filters 0.3, 0.6, 0.9 (B+W)

Hope this helps! Bear in mind I’ve built this collection over years as I needed a filter for a particular job!

The help clarify what Paul said...LEE uses 0.3, 0.6, and 0.9 for it's 1, 2, and 3 stop GND and ND filters (meaning that's how much light they block). Some other companies use the same method. Others you might see are ND2 (or NDx2), ND4 (or NDx4), ND8 (or NDx8), or possibly ND 1, ND 2, ND 3. The reason is depending on which measurement they use - optical density, attenuation factor, or stops. This is explained on this Wikipedia page. They're all the same though.

And I have a warming filter that I tried once, and decided I could VERY easily produce the same thing in PS...and since all my files run through there, I no longer see that need.

"Usually, "NDG" filters are referred to as "GND" filters"

David, it looks like my dyslexia or CRS syndrome, or both, is active again!

Thanks for the clarification to the OP!

-PB