A Little Difference Can Be a Lot

I'm fairly serious about photography and am always looking for ways to make my pictures better. There's no one magic bullet that you can attach to a camera that will make all your pictures better but there are a wide variety of filters that can change how your pictures look. Some of these filters produce obvious effects and others are subtle. I bought a Tiffen 58WRMUV filter for my Canon PowerShot G7 camera, and it turns out to produce a useful but subtle effect.

The Canon G7 is about as good as you can get in a compact point-and-shoot camera and it has an adapter to mount filters. I first got the filter adapter for the camera, then bought the Tiffen 58WRMUV filter for $26 from B&H Photo.

What it is

The Tiffen 58WRMUV is a screw-on filter that threads onto the Canon filter adapter for the G7 and G9 cameras. (The part number of this Canon adapter is LA-DC58H.) The filter consists of a somewhat yellow looking glass disk surrounded by a black aluminum frame, with an overall diameter of 58mm. One side of the aluminum frame has male threads that screw into the Canon filter adapter. The other side of the frame has female threads so that additional filters can be attached.

In an effort to accomplish two things at once, the Tiffen 58WRMUV removes ultraviolet (UV) and makes the picture slightly redder (or "warmer"). There are many times when a warmer look makes a scene appear better than it does in nature, including both landscapes and portraits. Ultraviolet often shows up as haze, which strips a scene of contrast and detail. Therefore, removing the hazy UV from the image will make a picture crisper and more vibrant.

Using it

The first few times I used the Tiffen 58WRMUV, there was apparently no difference between the "before" and "after" shots. Then a couple weeks ago, I took some landscape shots that were actually improved by using this filter. The shot with the filter definitely has a bluer sky and details of hills at the horizon are a little clearer, as compared to the shot without the filter. The filter shots are also a little warmer (or redder), which I think is pleasing in this particular fall foliage scene. In my opinion, the photo taken with the filter is prettier but it's a subtle difference -- it's not something that leaps out of the picture and hits you between the eyes.

I have not used the Tiffen 58WRMUV indoors for portrait or people shots, mostly because using the filter on the my camera partially blocks the camera's built-in flash. I'm planning to get an external flash, which will make using this Tiffen filter practical indoors. In the meantime, I continue to use it for landscape shots, where it makes a small but noticeable difference.

The filter definitely reduces the light into the camera. This isn't a problem with bright landscape photography or with a strong flash, but it could definitely be a problem at lower light levels. I estimate that the loss is about 1/2 of an f-stop.

Summary

The Tiffen 58WRMUV is a useful filter for landscape photography, particularly if you like the redder light that you get at sunrise and sunset. You shouldn't expect a massive difference in image quality but it will remove some haze and warm the image. There are lots of ways to improve your photography, including becoming better at Photoshop or other image processing program. However, I'm a firm believer in getting the image right in the camera -- fixing it later in Photoshop is neither fun nor fast.

I recommend the Tiffen 58WRMUV UV/warming filter but understand that its effects are subtle. Nevertheless, it's a useful accessory in my camera bag.