your favorite filter for b&w photography

[jy02858832]

Hi!

I want to konw which filter do you often use for b&w photography, medium yellow,green,red or orange?

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

When the sky is open blue, yellow filter.

ND for fast film on direct sun with large apertures.

No filter most of the times.

Cheers,

Juan

 

[barnwulf]

Mostly I don't use any filter but I sometimes need to either lighten or darken a color. I most often use a medium yellow or sometimes a red. Those two most often work for me.

 

[ReeRay]

Yellow always on, Orange for skies, Red for brickwork/structures

 

[smile]

mostly orange

 

[Ezzie]

Orange for landscapes with a lot of sky. ND grads at times to balance sky and foreground interest (though rather difficult to use). Otherwise pretty much nothing.

 

[kshapero]

Yellow and an ND 4.

 

[lxmike]

two favs

Red and green fiilters

 

[sniki]

Most without, otherwise yellow-green.

 

[charjohncarter]

I like the old fashion linear polarizing filter (I have nothing against the circular, I just have never tried one). You get controllable darkened skies (also that arrow on it makes it easy for my TLRs) without the loss of shadow detail.

 

[oftheherd]

No favorite. When I use one, I just use the one that will give me what I think I am looking for.

 

[nikon_sam]

For most of my shots a medium yellow...I do carry a linear polarizer, ND 4x & deep yellow...
On the 80mm 1.9 lens for the Mamiya m645 I found a #85 warming filter that works real nice with B&W film...

 

[TareqPhoto]

I have a red filter which i didn't use at all, i used it once with digital in 2007 i think then never use it again, but now with film i may use it again when necessary, i am just buying another filter, Yellow, so then i have different color filter, if i want orange then simply i put them together, lol

 

[chris000]

Medium yellow on quite a lot of my landscapes, graduated NDs and full NDs as appropriate.

 

[Ron (Netherlands)]

mostly dark red because I want dramatic b&w pictures, sometimes yellow

here the red filter made the pavement lighter (red stones) and the sky darker

 

[ferider]

Very cool, Ron.

I use yellow, red and ND. Yellow is not only good for blue sky, but also portraits (softens the skin a bit).

 

[Ron (Netherlands)]

You might find some usefull info in this booklet (its on the famous B+W filters):

https://www.schneideroptics.com/info/handbook/pdf/B+WHandbook_Full.pdf

 

[Bruin]

I use a yellow-green for nature landscapes and people; orange for urban landscapes and as a ND filter.

 

[matt335]

I picked up two second hand B+W filters cheaply, a yellow/green and a orange/red. I also have a very old yellow filter from my dad's old voigtlander which somehow fits on my 35mm summaron. the guides mentioned here and elsewhere are helpful to understand what filters do and how to use them effectively.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

Tiffen Bokeh Enhancer 😉

Chris