How to Use Filters on 35mm Cameras

Whether you use film or digital, filters are an important and enjoyable aspect of using a 35mm camera. There's a wide variety of them out there with different effects that you can match to particular lenses and conditions.

Instructions

1. Match your filters to the front threads on your lens. Your lens should have a number listed on it that indicates the size of its front threads in millimeters. You need to fit a corresponding-sized filter onto the lens. Alternatively, you can use stepping rings to adapt different size filters.

2. Protect your lens with clear or UV filters. These filters will not affect your image. Instead, they protect the front of your lens from damage, liquids or dirt.

3. Stop down your exposure with neutral density filters. Neutral density filters reduce the amount of light entering through the lens. They are useful in situations where you have a lot of light and want to slow down your shutter speed or open up your aperture. There are also gradient density filters that allow you to darken a particular part of the image, such as the sky.

4. Polarize your images with a polarizing filter. There are two types of polarizing filters: linear and circular. Linear polarizers interfere with most auto-focusing systems, so if you are going to be using your camera's auto focus you will need to get circular polarizing filters. Polarizing filters add contrast to your images, darken your skies and eliminate reflections from non-metallic surfaces. They are particularly useful for landscape photography.

5. Spice up your black-and-white photography with color filters. By placing color filters on your lens you can selectively brighten and darken the luminosity values of colors. On black-and-white film this can give quite interesting effects. For example, a red filter will darken your skies and add radiance to skin tones.