SLR Photography

One of the very first things that should be taught while mastering digital SLR photography is to go out and buy a lens filter for each of your lenses. Everyone should have one on their lens, be it a digital or film SLR camera.The best kind of filter to purchase is a UV or Sky filter. Will this make your pictures any better? Maybe, a little. But more importantly what it does do though, is protect the investment you've made on your lens. Once you scratch the surface of your lens - that's it. Time to buy another lens, which can get very pricey. And there is nothing you can do about it. However, if you have a UV filter on your lens, and you scratch the filter, go purchase another one - most for around $10 dollars! It'll be the best $10 insurance you've ever spent on your equipment.

Now beyond that, what other types of lens filters are nice to have in your accessory arsenal? Most photographers will agree that a polarizing filter is always nice to have. Neutral density, or ND, filters are also a great addition to help you achieve certain types of shots in very bright light. Still another type of lens filter, used lots by landscape photographers, is the graduated ND filter. These, in effect, limit the amount of light on half of the shot - for example, when shooting land and sky.

There are also bunches of specialty filters, such as close-up or macro filters (these allow you to zoom in closer for macro photography) and special effect filters. Whereas the macro filters are nice to have, depending upon your camera's image resolution, you may be able to get as close by cropping with your photo software package. As for all the special effect filters, like adding stars and rainbows, or filtering out certain colors, most of this can now be done in your image software package.