What does a yellow filter do on an overcast day?

[zniv]

...like today? The sky is washed out, and so look most other colors in the environment. Is it still useful to take a yellow filter to get a bit more contrast? Or will it simply act as a ND filter? I plan to go out in the next days to photograph some architectural details. If, as I suspect, a yellow filter won't contribute much to picture contrast, what can I do to increase contrast in these conditions?

have a nice day,

Vinzent

 

[Robin P]

... I plan to go out in the next days to photograph some architectural details.

Vinzent

So, if your architecture has light (yellowish) stone then the filter will make that lighter and any blue doors darker..... extrapolate that and you'll be able to predict the filter's effect to some extent.
One of those occasions when an SLR has advantage over a rangefinder, when you look through the filter it gives you a clue what effect it has.
Try it & see, a learning experience that's worth the time and the film.

Cheers, Robin

 

[Krzys]

Well you could always look through the filter with your eyes before screwing it onto the rangefinder camera. 😉

 

[Bill58]

Well you could always look through the filter with your eyes before screwing it onto the rangefinder camera. 😉

NOW, that's a novel idea.

 

[zniv]

Thanks for your replies! Unfortunately I'm not that proficient yet to determine just by looking through the yellow filter what the effects would look like on B/W film. Am I right that the effect will be smaller on an overcast day than in bright sunlight?

 

[Rob-F]

Yes, you are right. Filters freely pass their own colors, while rejecting the complementary color. Yellow and blue are complementary, so the filter will hold back the blue sky, making the negative lighter, and therefore the print will be darker. But if the sky is gray, there is nothing to hold back, so the filter will just reduce the exposure somewhat. You said it--a neutral density filter as far as the sky goes. Now take the example Robin used, above. Say the building walls have a yellowy color--maybe a warm, sandy color. The filter will do little to change that, since it is yellow. But anything blue in the shot will get held back--i.e., darkened. If that is what you wanted, fine. If not, you would have been better off without a filter.

what about colors other than blue and yellow? What should you do if you want to lighten a green building against a blue sky? Answer: use a green filter. It will freely pass the green color. And since blue and green are split complements, it will partially hold back the sky. Good enough. what if you wanted to darken the green building? A blue filter will darken green--split complements again--and lighten the sky.

The best rule is, if you don't know why you are using a filter in a given shot, don't use it. If not sure, take a backup shot without the filter. I don't use filters on overcast days. In fact, with modern films, I find that I am getting adequately dark sky with no filter, on clear days. That's because modern films no longer have the excessive blue sensitivity of older films.

Looking through a filter is only a rough guide, since film does not respond to colors the same way the eye does. But it's better than nothing.

 

[sevo]

The effect on the blue sky will of course be entirely lost if there is none.

Only deep yellow or orange filters are contrast enhancing - light yellow and yellow green are neutralizing filters that compensate the excessive blue sensitivity of film. They will convert a scenery to black and white with a rendition of object brightness that is close to the perception of the human eye. Light yellow is the neutralizing filter for panchromatic film in daylight conditions. The same goes for light green filters and orthopanchromatic film - or panchromatic in incandescent light.

 

[gilpen123]

I try to avoid shooting too much of the sky on overcast days. It's good for close up shots and portraits though as the lights are diffused. I use filters for tone separation ex. in many shades of greenery, I use green filter which seems funny but it gives better separation of tones (dark & light). If I don't use filters, the tonal separation will be barely noticeable.

 

[KenR]

I cannot appreciate the difference that a light yellow filter makes in color rendition, either on a SLR or held up to my eye. Only with a deep color filter(red, orange or green) can I see the difference in the way things look. Even on film, I find the effect of the yellow filter rather subtle, so I'm more likely to use the red filter to bring out those puffy clouds on a sunny day.

 

[VinceC]

Generally, on gray day the yellow filter will tend to light skin tones (primarily caucasian but also darker skin) ... folliage, grasses and trees will tend to be rendered lighter, thus reducing the oft-seen black forest against washed out sky. In many overcast days, there's a lot of light on the blue side of the spectrum, making the clouds unnaturally blue on color film. So the yellow filter will help with definition in the clouds.

 

[Rob-F]

Ansel Adams took his picture of Golden Gate using a Kodak wratten number 9 filter, also called a "K3 cloud filter." It's medium yellow. The sky is rendered fairly dark and dramatic. I will use a #9, or else a #12 dark yellow, or even a medium orange filter, for contrast any sky darkening. I find that a red filter, though, makes the picture look obviously over-filtered. They have used them in Hollywood B&W movies when it was necessary to shoot a nighttime scene in the daytime! I agree that very light (#1) yellow is just for correction, not for contrast. They are also for cutting haze in aerial photography.

 

[oftheherd]

Generally, on gray day the yellow filter will tend to light skin tones (primarily caucasian but also darker skin) ... folliage, grasses and trees will tend to be rendered lighter, thus reducing the oft-seen black forest against washed out sky. In many overcast days, there's a lot of light on the blue side of the spectrum, making the clouds unnaturally blue on color film. So the yellow filter will help with definition in the clouds.

Using a yellow filter with color film is a new one on me. I don't think any b/w filter such as yellow, red, green, or blue would be good for color film unless you are looking for that particular color cast for some reason. Seems like I remember that about an 80A or 80B was used on overcast days to compensate when using color film. Also, believe it or not, red can be used to lighten skin with b/w film. Green just doesn't make it look good at all.

You might want to try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wratten_number for some clues on filters. I expect if you google, you can find even better sources of information. You might want to try Mr. Roger Hicks site. I don't think there is anything in photography he doesn't have help on.

 

[VinceC]

I wasn't implying to use the things for color photography. Was trying to explain that, in color photography, you can see evidence of blue in cases where the eye sees mainly grey. Therefore, the yellow filter might accomplish more than you think it would in black and white.

 

[zniv]

Thank you again! It's amazing how much you can learn from starting a thread here.
What I have learned today (please correct me if I am wrong) is that even on overcast days with subdued colors filters can be useful - as there is still light, which is composed of different spectral colors after all. That blue is more prominent under these conditions makes sense, which justifies the use of a yellow filter or even orange or red.
Unfortunately at the moment I only have a light yellow filter for my Diacord - better start looking for a stronger Bay 1 filter.

Vinzent

 

[David 11084]

The advice " If you aren't sure, don't use one" is sound. Can't hep thinking " what if?" though!"
David

 

[charjohncarter]

Increase contrast, increase development time by 10-20%.

 

[Doug]

Some like to use a yellow filter for womens' portraits, as the skin is lightened and smoothed, while making skin defects less noticeable. Of course this darkens blue eyes, but would lighten brown eyes, and hair. Green filter is often suggested for male portraits to give skin tones a more "rugged" outdoorsman look. That would also lighten green eyes and most foliage, and darken magentas and purples.

 

[ZorkiKat]

Some info here:

Filter Basics for BW

 

[Robin P]

Here are some poor scans from a small piece of paper in the box of a "new, old stock" filter I bought recently.

Cheers, Robin

 

[kossi008]

Haze reduction. Good thing you brought that up, I was missing it in the discussion:

In my experience, a yellow filter doesn't do much to landcsape scene contrast on an overcast day. (The reason it does on a sunny day is because the shadows contain more blue than the sunny spots).

I use it mainly if I want to reduce haze on an overcast day, or for the skin reproduction properties mentioned above.

In general, I would go with the very good rule stated above:
1.) If you don't know why you are using it, don't.
However, I would like to add to it my own cardinal rule of photography:
2.) If you are unsure about the effect of a particular technique, try it.

In this case: take shots with and without filter and compare. If you cannot see a difference, you have wasted one negative, but you have still learned something.