6 Essential Lens Filters That Every New Photographer Should Have

A camera lens filter is pretty much what you’d expect: it’s a physical piece of glass that attaches to your camera’s lens, filters the light before it reaches the sensor and, typically, has an effect on the final image. (Some lens filters just add protection.) They’re relatively affordable camera accessories that can have a really big impact on your final shots.

There are quite a few types of camera lens filters, each of which alters the final image in different ways. There are camera lens filters that protect against glare, enhance or reduce contrast, change the color — usually to make your photos look warmer or cooler — or even add special effects (such as light flares, infrared, multivision, etc).

How to know if a lens filter will fit your camera?

Before buying a lens filter, you need to make sure that it’ll fit your camera’s lens — and to do this, you need to know its lens diameter, which is the distance across the front of the lens. (Note: This is very different than its focal length.)

The good news is that pretty much all lens manufacturers (Nikon, Canon, Sony, Sigma, etc) have the same sizing standards when it comes to lens diameter. So once you figure out the diameter of the lens, it’s pretty straightforward to buy a lens filter that will fit it. The catch is that the diameter of the lens isn’t always as well marked as its focal length.

You can usually find the diameter of the lens by rotating on its side and looking for the diameter symbol which is a slashed circle: Ø. This symbol is then followed by the diameter’s length measured in millimeters: Ø43 (43mm), Ø49 (49mm), Ø52 (52mm), Ø58 (58mm), Ø62 (62mm), Ø68 (68mm), Ø72 (72mm), and Ø77 (77mm).

The next thing to know is how a lens filter will actually attach to your lens. For this, there are two main ways that lens filers can be attached to your lens:

• Screw-on: These are circular lens filters that, as their name suggests, screw directly onto the end of your lens. They are by far the most common type of lens filter and, because they actually screw into the end of your lens, they attach very securely. The catch is that these lens filters need to be the exact size of your lens — there’s no room for wiggle room.

• Slot-in (or Drop-in): These are lens filters that require a filter holder, which is a separate attachment that fits on the end of your lens. This filter holder typically has several slots which you can “slot-in” or “drop-in” different lens filters. The neat thing is that this allows you to use several different lens filters at once, which gives you a lot of creative freedom to create a specific look or effect.

The Different Types of Lens Filters

Clear filters

Tiffen

Clear filters, also known as “protective” filters, screw onto the edge of your lens and protect it from dust, moisture or any other element that could scratch your lens’s surface. Most of these lens filters don’t have any kind of effect on the lens — although there are UV filters that protect against UV rays which can cause an image to appear hazy — so they’re a good option for any type of photography. They are also some of the most affordable lens filters you can buy.

Amazon

Clear Lens Filter

Tiffen 58CLR Clear Filter (for 58mm)

• $14.09 at Amazon
  $15.99 (12% off)

ND filters

Hoya Filter

Neutral density (ND) filters are one of the most commonly used types of lens filters. They reduce the amount of light that enters your lens (and thus gets to your camera’s sensor), allowing for larger apertures (and thus a shallower depth of field) and slower shutter speeds. There are a couple of different reasons to use an ND filter. The first is to achieve motion blur. The second is if there is too much contrast in an image, an ND filter can be used to bridge the gap in the contrast so that you can get a better exposure and an image with greater detail.

Note: ND filters are available in different darknesses or “densities.” These are measured from 1-stop all the way up to 15-stop. The higher the number, the less amount of light gets through the lens and reaches your camera’s sensor.

Amazon

ND Lens Filter

Hoya Pro ND 500 (for 62mm)

• $21.90 at Amazon

Graduated ND filters

Aurora Aperture

A “graduated” ND (or GND) filter is a type of ND filter. However, instead of completely reducing the amount of light that gets through the lens and reaches the sensor, like an ND filter, a graduated ND filter only darkens half the lenses — it gradually fades from dark at the top to completely clear near the center and the bottom. It’s a useful filter for when you shoot landscapes and you only want to reduce the brightness of part of the image, like the sky and clouds.

B&H Photo

Graduated ND Lens Filter

Tiffen Graduated 0.6 ND Filter (for 77mm)

• $95.00 at B&H Photo

Polarizing filters

Hoya Filter

A polarizing filter — also called a “polarizer” — does the same job as a polarized lens for sunglasses. It is used to cut glare, reflections and unwanted light so that your image is sharper and deeper. It also saturates colors so that they appear really vivid and improves contrast. A polarizer is a really handy tool for outdoor and landscape photography, especially when taking photos of water or the sky.

B&H Photo

Polarizing Lens Filter

Hoya Circular Polarizer Filter (for 62mm)

• $36.99 at B&H Photo

Color filters

B&H

A color filter is used to change the color or hue of your image. The most common use-case of color filters is to change the warmth or coolness of a photo. A color filter with various hues of yellow, orange or even red will have a warming effect, while color filters with a blue or purple hue will have a cooling effect. These are typically effects that photographers adjust in post production, but color filters can be a simpler and more analog means to a similar end.

B&H Photo

Color Lens Filter

Tiffen 80B Color Filter (for 72mm)

• $49.99 at B&H Photo

Close-up filters

B&H

A close-up filter — sometimes called a macro filter — is a filter that’s designed to allow you to take macro-like photos without a macro lens. It’s a budget-friendly tool as macro lenses tend to be quite expensive. These filters magnify the subject so that they appear larger and you can capture more close-up shots. The catch, as you might expect, is that close-up filters are quite limiting and not nearly as versatile. Unlike a macro lens, you can’t really take a photo with a close-up filter that’s not up close to a subject; if you try to move away, you’ll just get a really blurry image.

B&H Photo

Close-Up Lens Filter

Tiffen Close-Up Lens Set (for 49mm)

• $29.95 at B&H Photo

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