Sounds like a trip we took to Africa. The 10x superzoom P&S delivered some great pictures, but in hindsight, they could have been much better. But for me, what really spurred by entrée into dSLR photography was having a child - the AF and shutter lag with a P&S just became intolerable. Still, like Bob suggested, I 'tested the waters' by starting with an entry-level body (T1i/500D) in 2009. Knowing the importance of lens over body from my days shooting film (before autofocus lenses, to put it in perspective), I eschewed the kit lens and got an EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS (which I still have) for general use and an EF 85mm f/1.8 for portraits (which I subsequently replaced with an EF 85mm f/1.2L II). After a short time, I was confident that this was something I'll be doing for the rest of my life, and the gear list began to grow...Originally Posted by weewillo
I think so, yes. Granted...you can take pictures without either. But a hood does two things - offers some protection for your lens (from fingers, branches, and while changing lenses), and improves the contrast in your images (particularly outdoor shots on bright days).
Filters can be important, too. They used to be a lot more important - in the film days, they were used to compensate for color, because film came in specific color temperatures (aka white balance), and sometimes you needed to shoot under light that didn't match your film; they were also used for effects in black-and-white photography. Today with digital, auto WB and Photoshop make those uses unnecessary. UV filters played an important role with film, too, since film is sensitive to UV light, sunny days meant hazy images and the UV filters reduced that. Again, today's digital sensors are essentially insensitive to UV light, meaning a UV filter doesn't help your images.
Basically, there are 3-4 types of filters you'd want to consider using with a dSLR. UV/clear for protection, and the others are for effects that cannot be duplicated in post-processing.
UV/Clear - these are solely for protection. There's lots of debate over whether they help or not, and I won't bother going there. Personally, I use them. If nothing else, they are easier to clean than the front element of most lenses (which is why the very newest Canon lenses have fluorine coatings on the front and rear elements). If you do decide to use UV filters, be sure to get a good quality filter - cheap ones will degrade your image quality. Look for B+W (MRC or Nanocoat), or the high-end Hoya (SHMC or Pro1). You'll want one for every lens, and in some cases it can add upwards of $100 to the purchase (the sum cost of all of my UV filters would pay for a 24-105mm lens!).
- UV/clear
- Polarizing
- Neutral density
- Graduated neutral density
Polarizing - can add lots of 'pop' to your images, more saturated colors, reduce/eliminate reflections, etc. Be sure to get a circular polarizing filter (CPL; linear polarizers affect autofocus). If you'll be shooting landscapes, I'd definitely recommend a CPL.
Neutral density - main use is to allow you to shoot at shutter speeds slower than otherwise possible for the conditions - these are how the waterfall shots that you like have the moving water blurred. I find a 3-stop filter is usually sufficient for waterfalls, though a 6-stop would work, too. I also use a 10-stop filter for architectural shots - that allows a shutter time of 30-60 seconds for a daytime shot, which 'subtracts' the people moving through the scene. Another use is when shooting with a fast lens and using fill flash in daylight (without an ND, the slow shutter speed necessitated by flash sync would mean a blown out scene, although high-speed sync is another option there if your flash supports it). For waterfalls, one of these is almost a must. Even if you can get the right exposure by stopping down, going to f/16 or f/22 on an APS-C sensor is going to have a noticeable effect on the image sharpness, due to diffraction.
Graduated neutral density - compensates for uneven lighting of sky vs. ground in landscape photography; arguable if this is reproducible in post - not identically, certainly, but HDR photography is a substitute (and in some cases, e.g. complex horizons, superior). I'd hold off on these, and I consider them 'advanced' filters. There are circular ones that screw onto your lens - convenient, but useless IMO - they force you to place your horizon in the center of the image, which almost certainly is not where you want it. So, for grad NDs you'd want a rectangular holder and large filters, less convenient, but the way to go for them.
There have been lots of debates about this 'requirement'. The answer is that a filter is definitely required to complete the sealing of some L lenses, possibly required for others, and not required for some. The lenses that unquestionably require a filter are those lenses with exposed 'internally moving' elements, i.e. an inner barrel that moves behind the plane of the filter. That includes the UWA zooms (16-35L II, 17-40) where the zoom elements move, and the 50/1.2 where the front focus elements move. In those cases, the instruction manual specifies the need for a filter. It would probably be possible to design around that requirement, but for the UWa zooms, for example, it would mean a different lens design that would be larger and much more expensive.
The lenses that definitely do not require a filter for sealing are the supertele lenses - their front elements are too large/don't take filters (they use drop-ins), so Canon seals them. The debatable ones are all the other L lenses that are 'sealed' - lenses like the 24-105mm, 24-70mm, 100mm Macro IS, 70-200mm IS zooms, etc. The 100-400mm is a semi-sealed lens (no mount gasket, but switches and zoom/focus rings have sealing), and Chuck Westfall recommends using a filter with that lens in wet conditions. I figure it's better to use a filter on them, just in case.
A related option is http://www.pixel-peeper.com/adv/ where you can search for images with a specific lens on a specific camera, and even select specific apertures, etc.
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