In a Facebook group I’m in, someone asked what size of filters a Paper Shoot (PS) takes. Truth be told there’s little info on that. But in fact the current cases take a 26mm filter thread.

What no official filter spec ?

It’s weird that PS don’t declare this point as it would be handy for folk to know. The modern cases have both an outer and inner thread. The outer is used for the screw on caps and LED light. The Inner I think is for the PS accessory lens. It may be that PS worry about folk bring their own accessory lenses or ignore their digital effect filter system.

But whilst I agree you’re probably best buying their effect filters (star, prism, radial, close up, wide angle and fish eye). There’s way more filters that make sense.

But I though this camera has filters built in ?

So yes the Paper Shoot has filters but they’re digital. You get 4 which you can switch between. These are applied to the image after you’ve taken the shot. You can add extra filter using upgrade cards or edit in post for example if you upload your shots via insta et al you can add dozens of filter effects

What we’re talking about is using optical filters, these are thin usually glass sheets that affect the light passing through before they hit the camera.

How easy is to do this

Pretty easy

Although actual 26mm screw in filters are rare, there is an easy solution. You can easily buy a 26mm step up ring. These allow you to use a bigger diameter filter on a smaller lens filter thread lens. I’ve a 26mm to 30mm step up ring which seems to be the commonest but I have seen 26 to 37mm.

You can stack multiple ring to get a convenient size. Whilst I do own a 30mm UV filter as above and you do rarely find filters that size, I really need to use a second and third ring to get to where I already have filters.

For me that’s 52mm or bigger based on my film camera lenses but whilst you get loads of 52mm filters it does mean you’re obstructing the finder

But if you don’t have any 37mm may be all you need to head to. It is also a more common filter size and won’t really obscure your viewfinder too much. Other size options are 40.5mm or 43mm although the latter does start to intrude.

Bear in mind this camera meters TTL. This is good as it should auto adjust for most filters you use as usually using a colour or polarising filter will reduce the light hitting the sensor. It also does auto white balance (AWB) which is a limiting factor.

I’m new to optical filters can you give me a run down

Filters have been around as long as photography has been. Today we use digital filters on our phones or insta feed but these often create the effect of optical filters.

Filters come in different types. You can get push on ones but these are pretty vintage and I can’t confirm what size you’d need. You can also DIY filters (I’ve used transparent coloured sweet wrappers)

But the commonest are you have the screw in type. The most widely seen are circular ones that just screw into the ring as you’ve seen so far. You can stack filter on top of each other.

But you also get filter holder types. Cokin is probably the most famous but you do get other brands. They all broadly use the same system you get a holder for square (or sometime round filters. This holder has a secure slot for a filter ring adaptor that looks a bit like a step up ring

You can slide different filters into and out of the holder. Most will accept a few filters at the same time. You cans tack circular filters as well but the advantage of cokin’s system is you can swap the filter holder adaptor and use the same filter on multiple different lenses.

The Cokin A series is a good starting point. It’s still made but has been in production for ages so picking up second hand gear is easy and cheap

Some issues before you start

Often when using optical filters on digital camera you can lock some of the colour correction setting. Here you have no choice and the camera will attempt to digitally filter.

Filters can vary from pennies to $100’s. Most of existing filters aren’t cheap but I shoot them on Film or digital SLR with expensive lenses. A filter provides another layer of glass to shoot through which means potential imperfects. You get what you pay for usually. But the PS doesn’t exactly have a Leica classic cutting edge lens. If this is the only thing you’ll shoot filters with cheap ones won’t be that big an issue.

What Types of Filter make sense for the paper shoot and what don’t?

Okay here’s my tuppence on filters what’s good and bad IMHO. But……

Look I’m a fan of experimentation and throwing caution to the wind. What follows is my thoughts but they are just opinions so feel free to ignore.

Makes sense (to me) – 1 – Colour Filters

The oldest and simplest are colour filters. They were used long before colour photographs existed. Granted you can slide in a colour filter and get a weird colour effect with a colour photo today and if that’s you’re thing dig in

But most were and still are used for B&W photography. Historically they were essential for early B&W film stocks that had issues with colour sensitivities.

This can have an impact especially on landscape photos. Essentially using a yellow through to orange to Red will all filter out blue green light to some extent. Red is most marked and can produce almost Inky black skies in the right condition on more highend film and digitals. Take this shot below taken by fellow blogger Alex Luyckx of alexlyckx.com fame

I didn’t quite achieve that in midwinter Scotland on the Paper shoot and I was using cheaper red filter than Alex. The camera also tries to auto correct a bit with AWB. But the effect is still noticeable. I’d from experience recommend going red or orange here where as I’d usually use a weaker yellow filter

You get more contrast and the red filter reduces UV and cloud haze on landscape shots.

Although this works best on Landscape shots Colour filters can impact indoors too

Orange has less intense effect and yellow even less. These filters are most widely used for landscape photos. And whilst I’ll often use a yellow K2 on a film camera, I’d suggest on experience going for a Red filter with the paper shoot.

Wikipedia has a fuller colour filter examples for B&W but bear in mind what I said about the Paper Shoot AWB and internal filters

Makes Sense – 2- Circular Polariser (CPL)

A circular polariser filter also adjusts light quality. Like the sunglasses they reduce glare and reflections as well as boosting colour saturations

There some skill (best used when sun high in sky) and avoid the older linear polarisers. Those handy for adjusting the degree of effect but only in manual focus film SLR cameras (where (a) you can see the effect (b) they won’t interfere with AF).

Makes Sense – 3- Special Effect Filters

There’s a clutch of these and they differ wildly

Paper Shoot sell some of them for these cameras but you can source elsewhere. I don’t think using a star effect filter would be an issue compared to to the official one. Likewise although you may get different patterns the prism and split image lenses can also be found as filters. You can also pick up a kaleidoscope filter.

But in fairness to Paper Shoot their filters are designed to fit and work with the camera. They’re not outrageously priced either so if you’re buying new I’d just pick these up

You can also buy filter screw in accessory wide and close up lenses from paper shoot. Whilst you can get them as generic screw in filters you’ll find they’re geared for much bigger lenses and you’re sticking a few stepping rings in the way. So as below results may vary

There’s loads more but they will be hit and miss. Look out for diffusion filters that soften the image – There are loads. Historically these were just fog or mist effects but now they can be much more or less subtle

I’m Dubious – Minor colour correction, UV and Skylight

You can get milder colour filters for colour correction but one suspects the AWB would get in the way of their effectiveness.

The most widely used filters by Photogs with film and and dslr is UV or skylight filters. These can reduce UV haze and the skylights can warm up images slightly correcting for the sometime slight blue cold effect you get under blue skies. But AWB will minimise any correction and TBH most photogs use them as lens protectors.

Here’s a set of images I took on a lo-fi FND Nana film camera with a UV filter on and off. There no AWB there but the effects are very subtle

Avoid -1- Neutral Density (ND) filters

And i say this as someone with more ND filters than i know what to do with. ND filters do what they say on the tin. The add a neutral colour density reducing all light passing through them uniformly without affecting colour. They’re essentially various intensities of gray colouration.

Now some of you might be thinking great – “I think my paper shoot over-exposes anyway. I’ll use a ND filter to correct that !”. But won’t work. The camera meters through the lens so the sensor will adjust.

ND filters allow photogs to reduce light entering which allows them to to use longer shutters or in some cases wider apertures. The latter can be helpful with Bokeh shots but that’s not relevant here as we’re talking about a fixed aperture camera. The other reason prolonging shutter time like those pesky pros to get to smoothed water shots like this

Here the photog has slowed the shutter to smooth out waterflow…. Now that’s cool but the trouble is that exposure isn’t just shutter speed and aperture. It’s also determined by the ISO aka how sensitive your camera sensor is to light. Our Photog above will have locked likely a low ISO and several second exposure time.

But there’s a problem doing that with the paper shoot

Also the longest exposure on the 18MP Paper shoot in 1/30. The paper shoot can’t lock ISO either so all you’ll do is make your images grainy at best and potentially under exposed if light is already limited

Avoid -2- Graduated filters

Graduated filters exist either in ND or colour form. You’ll find them on system filters like Cokin as they do what they say on the tin. The filter has a variable colour or neutral density across. As a Child of the 70’s I used colour grads in the 80’s as a teen to awfully add in sunset like effects. Today ND grads are used to help control when skies are over bright. But you really need TTL vision either by LCD on SLR mirror to gauge the and adjust the effects. neither of which you’ll find on the paper Shoot.

That darn filtering and AWB kicks in a lot

Not worth the effort IMHO

But Remember …..

Look these are my own views – feel free to fool around

Other filter guides and resources

Wikipedia has an excellent guide to filters and is a good starting point without advice. US Camera retailer Adorama has a handy practical guide for beginners