using filters for bw ?

[venchka]

Filter specialist

Filter specialist

Chris,

Sounds so much nicer. Got any useable Series VI filters for my 127mm Ektar? The ones my dad had and some I bought on ebay are trashed. Yellow-Green-Orange-Red. Anything like that? I pay real coin.

Back on topic: heliopan Yellow 8 pretty much lives on my 180mm view camera lens. Two B+W filters for my 125mm view camera lens: yellow-green or yellow-orange. I have red and polarizers for both lenses as back up. A full compliment from light yellow to medium red for my rangefinder lenses.

Am I a filter whore too???????????

Wayne
Well filtered in East Texas.

I'm a 'filter whore' Floyd, that is I have literally hundreds of them. However, I only use a filter if it is necessary to the picture at hand. Most of my photos are taken with no filter (or a clear one if I'm being paranoid about exposing the front element to the elements.)

As you know from using Photoshop to simulate filtration, modifying the color spectrum has a huge effect on the look of the final photograph. The problem with doing it in film is that you cannot see and adjust the effect. So you will need to build an experiential database.

All of the recommendation you see here are good. Photography books used to have tables of filters and possible uses for their effects, and those are another good source. The basic filters for B&W are red, orange and yellow, which all have similar effects with deep red being the strongest, and light yellow the weakest. Green as you see above is good for people and trees. Blue filters are interesting: they bring out any skin blemishes and add haze to landscapes. And yes, they'll turn any sky bald white.

If you want to learn to use filters (and you can do great b&w photography without them. Ralph Gibson, for example, eschews filteration), buy each of the filters you want to use, then do some testing. Take the same picture with each of your filters, and with no filter. Compare prints of those photos and learn what effect the filter had on the picture. Soon you will develop a feeling for what a particular filter will do.

Good luck and hope you don't end up like me...

 

[Doug]

For a general understanding, it's useful to keep in mind that the filter lightens scenic objects of its own color, and darkens objects with the complementary color, ie, the color directly opposite on the color wheel. The stronger the filter color, the stronger the effect.

This is applicable with chromogenic films too, but different B&W films have variations in spectral sensitivity. For instance, Tri-X is a little less sensitive to reds than Ilford XP2, so skies are naturally a little darker with XP2 and is less likely to suffer underexposure in reddish indoor light.

 

[Chris101]

Chris,

Sounds so much nicer. Got any useable Series VI filters for my 127mm Ektar? The ones my dad had and some I bought on ebay are trashed. Yellow-Green-Orange-Red. Anything like that? I pay real coin.

Back on topic: heliopan Yellow 8 pretty much lives on my 180mm view camera lens. Two B+W filters for my 125mm view camera lens: yellow-green or yellow-orange. I have red and polarizers for both lenses as back up. A full compliment from light yellow to medium red for my rangefinder lenses.

Am I a filter whore too??????????? ...

Hey Wayne - nah. It sounds like you are still legit - all your filters make sense. I have filters that don't fit anything I've ever had! But look, I'll stoop to tape. The picture I posted is only a fraction of the filters I have, but I'm a spectroscopist, so that makes sense ... doesn't it? 😕😱😱

Even though I have an ektar 127 (on my Crown) I don't actually have anything that attaches to it. I'll look through stuff though. But bear in mind that I've never actually sold anything.

Doug: Thanks for that information about XP2. I have just shot my first roll of that film (I've spent the last two weeks on vacation, exploring some new films.) I wish I had known this previously, but it will help in the future, I am sure.

 

[sevo]

You can't really get these same results in post processing of b+w film correct? Since the color is absent on the film you can't really get the same quality of separation???

You cannot colour post process b&w, right. However, you cannot b+w filter post process colour film either, as the latter contains a trichroic separation rather than a spectral recording of the scene - any filter with a spectral bandwidth narrower than the separating filters/sensitizers of the film will not act as desired.

Sevo

 

[Chris101]

You cannot colour post process b&w, right. However, you cannot b+w filter post process colour film either, as the latter contains a trichroic separation rather than a spectral recording of the scene - any filter with a spectral bandwidth narrower than the separating filters/sensitizers of the film will not act as desired.

Agreed. Aren't Wratten's 29, 61 and 47 designed to match the dyes of color film?

 

[sevo]

Agreed. Aren't Wratten's 29, 61 and 47 designed to match the dyes of color film?

These are quite a bit more cleanly separated than colour film sensitizers can be - but given the rather poor separation of the human eye (which sees colour mostly thanks to aggressive brain processing rather than to good sensitizing) film can get away with quite a few dirty tricks without being perceptively wrong.

We recently had a thread on filter separations over at the the Large Format Photography Forum and the colour quality people got out of that was stunning indeed, way above any colour film.

Sevo

 

[Doug]

We recently had a thread on filter separations over at the the Large Format Photography Forum and the colour quality people got out of that was stunning indeed, way above any colour film.
Sevo

This reminds me of an experiment I did long ago with separation filters, sort of a side topic to the above but interesting... Using color negative film, I exposed each frame three times, once each using a different separation filter. I figured the result should look the same as with a single no-filter exposure, and it did.

Except that anything that had moved from one exposure to another changed its color, depending on which filter(s) it had been exposed with. Moving water, for instance, took on multi-colored sparkles.

Of course I used a tripod, and the camera had shutter cocking separate from film winding, an Argus C3 bought for $10 with the project in mind.

 

[Chris101]

This reminds me of an experiment I did long ago with separation filters, sort of a side topic to the above but interesting... Using color negative film, I exposed each frame three times, once each using a different separation filter. I figured the result should look the same as with a single no-filter exposure, and it did.

Except that anything that had moved from one exposure to another changed its color, depending on which filter(s) it had been exposed with. Moving water, for instance, took on multi-colored sparkles.

Of course I used a tripod, and the camera had shutter cocking separate from film winding, an Argus C3 bought for $10 with the project in mind.

Try that with clouds.