There's many different filters that you can simply screw onto the end of your lens to create some really interesting effects. The most basic of all filters is a standard UV filter. As you can see here, a UV filter screws right onto the edge of the camera like any other camera would. The difference with a UV filter and some other filters is that a UV filter is just clear glass, and the main purpose of it is to protect your lens from being damaged by dirt or the elements or anything like that. So if you're buying a camera and some lenses, the first thing you need to get is a UV filter. There are some other filters that open you up to some creative techniques. One of those is a blur filter. A blur filter has it set so that there's only one small portion of the filter that's going to allow everything to come through crisp and clear, and everything else, it's going to put a sort of a blur on it. This is going to create some neat effects if you've got like a picture of a person standing in the middle of a garden, maybe you can have the person in focus and everything around them all blurry. And it can just really make certain things stand out. Another type of filter to create effects is called a starburst filter. These come in like four point, five point, six point, and what this does, is if you're taking a picture of a single light source it will turn it into a star shape. So like a four point one, instead of just showing a single glowing light up in the distance, you'll see four major points coming off of it. These are used a lot in the filming of sporting events. You'll notice that when they show the lights at night, that they're making these nice lines coming out of the lights. That's created from a starburst filter. Another filter that's commonly used, not so much for effects, but just for getting a stronger exposure, is a polarizing filter. These look a little blue in hue, and what they do is they'll help the sky and water and things of that nature show up with a little bit more color to them, and you'll just get a richer stronger image. So there's certain filters, like the UV filter, that's basically there to protect your camera. And there's other ones like the polarizing filter, they're going to help you get better exposures, and then there's some filters that are going to create some effects like the star burst and blur filters.
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