G1 Landscape Images & Red Filter

[JoeV]

Today I explored the foothills hiking trails along the west face of the Sandia Mtns, on the eastern edge of Albuquerque, using my G1 and a red #25 filter on the 14-45 lens.

All images at 14mm f.l., ISO 400, dynamic B/W mode, Aperture priority mode.

I noticed while using the red filter that the initial images I captured were all underexposed, even though I was at 0EV compensation. I attribute this to the effects of the red filter. I ended up adding +3 EV to most of these images.

"S" curve and brightness/contrast adjustments added in PS.

~Joe

PS: The last image's foreground was under the shadow of a cloud.

 

[Nick De Marco]

very nice
I was thinking of doing this with a CV lens
Now I shall

 

[Tuolumne]

I wonder how this would compare to shooting in color and doing a filtered conversion to B&W. Picasa has an easy to use one click function for this.

/T

 

[CVickery]

Nice shots, but using color filters with digital doesn't accomplish much that can't be done better in postprocessing. When you used the red filter all you really did was shut down the blue and green photosites (hence your exposure issue) and thereby lowered the effective resolution of the resulting images.

 

[Doug]

But in post-processing getting the same look effectively ignores the blue and green data, right? And does that lower effective resolution too?

I like your shots, Joe, especially the first, third, and fifth where the lighting gives more modeling to the scene.

 

[JoeV]

Thanks for the comments.

Yes, I've done channel mixer plenty for B/W conversions from color files. But I also come from a background of legacy, manual cameras using film, so it was natural to want to try this. I think that manually adjusting the exposure via the histogram just for the red channel, in-camera, afforded me a better exposure than using channel mixer in post. I pushed the exposure such that the highlights were just shy of clipping. If shooting this as a color image I'd have to review the red channel's histogram in playback and adjust exposure, then reshoot; which would also imply that I'd be blowing out the green and blue channels while doing so.

I also did a side-by-side comparison of the same scene, one with a red filter and the other with a polarizer. Interestingly, the scene with the red filter was surprisingly more subdued in contrast, whereas the polarized image was much punchier, to the point of blown highlights. In daylight landscape images such as these, excess contrast is a problem with these cameras (heck, with film, too); so I was pleasantly surprised at the control of contrast the red filter afforded, while still rendering good contrast in the sky. This is counter-intuitive, since the shadows should be bluish in tone in daylight, the red filter should have increased the landscape's contrast.

Another situation where filters over the lens are preferable to using channel mixer is a polarizer with a body of water, such as a stream, whereby adjusting the filter can eliminate much of the reflections, permitting the rocks underwater to be seen. You can't photoshop that detail back in post.

~Joe

 

[charjohncarter]

Try a polarizing filter. Digital is so contrasty maybe if you used a P filter you would get so much fall off in the shadows. I disagree with the above at least when using film. He says blown highlights with a P filter that is just incorrect metering.

 

[JoeV]

Thanks Char. I did a vacation several weeks ago in Colorado using a polarizer on the G1. I liked the results, but I've gotta say from my experience yesterday with the red filter that I like these results better, especially WRT tonal range. This kind of harsh light with B/W film I've done before (in fact, these same foothills) by over-exposing and under-developing to control contrast, so I have a good basis of experience for saying that my results with the red filter on the G1 are surprisingly good - at least enough to satisfy me.

~Joe

 

[Steve M.]

Woa, those are excellent shots for a digital camera. Usually I just yawn when I see their attempts at B&W landscape, but the red filter helped give it a film look. Colored filters are not a straight linear exposure deal, so you always have to fine tune things by bracketing and keeping notes to determine what works best w/ which lens. Easier to do w/ digital for sure. The only negative (no pun intended) I see here, and I understand I'm looking at rezzed down samples, is that the middle distance in some of the shots look a little fuzzy. That may just be the small sensor trying to deal w/ the huge DOF that makes a view camera w/ it's tilts and rises a better bet for landscapes.

I'm in Las Cruces and your shots compare favorably to my B&W film shots of the Organ Mountains here..