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  #1  
Old 13th March 2012, 01:05 PM
AlanJones AlanJones is offline
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Default Filters: Choices and uses.

Until about five years ago I had not bothered with filters. The only one I had was a UV(0) which the salesman insisted I had for lens protection when I bought a new camera in the 1980's. I was also given a Hoya illustrated cataloge (now on the Internet) showing the results of a specific filter and no filter as a comparison. With friends now giving up photography as a hobby or going digital, I have been given a few filter collections and think I must have most of the Hoya range in 49mm and most of the usual ones in 58mm.

A couple of years ago I had about six frames to go on a 36exp Pan F, strange for me as I only did colour then, and decided to give filters a try. I set my camera on a tripod and was a case of; first with no filter, then red, yellow, green, orange and green/yellow. As I had only one film I took it to a local camera dealer for processing and presumably it was done in colour chemistry. The results were not as good (softer) as when I had processed Pan F myself in Perseptol.

With the six frames at the end of the film, with filters, they were well short of my expectations. I mean to say that there was an improvement, but it was not nearly as dramatic as I would have liked. I put this down to Hoya's booklet being sales material after all wondering if some form of trickery had been employed. But I now wonder if the colour processing of the film may have had bearing? Now that I have my darkroom gear out the attic, I am thinking of repeating the exercise.

Living in 'big sky' country, the flat lands of East Anglia, there is a need for interesting skyscapes to make up for a rather uninteresting and monotonous landscape.

The questions are:
  • How does one get a more dramatic result?
    What if it is an overcast day, with lower level cloud with detail, what can be done to bring out detail?
    Anything to be gained by using more than one filter?
    Where does one find out more?

I am keen to learn more about filters. Here I am looking to some 'depth' of opinion as well as a plain answer. I am still wondering how that chap in the graveyard got on the the magenta filter!!!

Last edited by AlanJones; 13th March 2012 at 01:09 PM.
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Old 13th March 2012, 01:26 PM
Michael Michael is offline
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H. Clauss and H. Meusel Filter practice is a good text, if old. There are copies available via abebooks.com .
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Old 13th March 2012, 03:15 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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I am puzzled about how a B&W was developed in C41 chemistry. The bleach stage of the C41 process as I understand it, is designed to dissolve all the silver halides and leave the dye clouds which is what a colour neg has when the dev process is complete.

Dissolving the silver halides in a trad B&W film leaves nothing, I think.

If it was a local camera dealer hhe/she either sent it away to a trad B&W processor or did it with B&W chemicals by hand. Minilabs are nearly all set up for C41 so they can't easily flush out their C41 chemicals and refill with B&W chemicals, nor are they likely to be prepared to do so given the effort and cost for one film


In my experience yellow can have a limited effect but orange and red will be very noticeable in a blue sky with white clouds.

In a greyish overcast sky then filters may have no effect at all other than alter the tones of non-sky items e.g red will darken green foliage and lighten the likes of Cotswold stone and turn yellow objects into an off-white and lighten red objects way beyond the colour the eye sees.

Mike
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Old 13th March 2012, 04:30 PM
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dsallen dsallen is offline
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When I did large format landscape photography, my most used filter was a Wratten 12 'minus blue' filter which is a yellow filter that absorbs virtually all light of blue wavelengths. It was a very effective tool with more effect than red with a lower filter factor.

These days, for my urban work, I find that Delta 400 developed in a two-bath developer produces enough drama (all those dyes they use now?) with strong skies (a photograph on my website with only very minimal dodging to balance the sky demonstrates this very well - it can be found in the gallery entitled 'Berlin Prezlauer Berg II" and the image is called 'Veteranenstraße, 2008') and do not use filters anymore.

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Old 13th March 2012, 05:35 PM
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Les McLean Les McLean is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AlanJones View Post
The questions are:
  • How does one get a more dramatic result?
    What if it is an overcast day, with lower level cloud with detail, what can be done to bring out detail?
    Anything to be gained by using more than one filter?
    Where does one find out more?

I am keen to learn more about filters. Here I am looking to some 'depth' of opinion as well as a plain answer. I am still wondering how that chap in the graveyard got on the the magenta filter!!!
Alan the absolute best way to answer your questions is for you to expose a few rolls of film on the subject matter that you wish to photograph, in different lighting condidtions and with different combibations of filters. Always start with a correctly exposed unfiltered negative to use as a reference, keep comprehensive notes on what you have done, lighting condidtion and importantly, exposure details in order to determine the filter factor that you will need to use with any particular filter. I know the manufacturer will provide you with a factor but by testing you will determine the factor that gives you what you like.

Most of us who post here can answer your questions but you will end up with quite a variety of differences based on someone else's opinion. I don't suggest that they will be wrong but they will be designed to produce what that user likes.

Spend a little time testing as suggested and that time and the expense will prove to be very worthwhile.
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Old 13th March 2012, 05:35 PM
DavidH DavidH is offline
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I am surprised that you didn't find the effect you were expecting. Certainly on a clear day I find a x2 yellow filter puts some tone into the sky and if you have some light cloud around amongst the blue, an orange filter has a sustantial effect.
Remember that a filter will tend to lighten its own colour an darken the rest. If, for example you are taking pictures that include a lot of foliage, a green filter will allow it to show up brighter with more of its subtle tones visible.. I know this sounds obvious, but did you apply the appropriate level of correction when you exposed with filters? I just wondered if your negatives were rather thin and so the range of tones weren't properly recorded on the negative.
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Old 13th March 2012, 06:06 PM
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Argentum Argentum is offline
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we all think of the sky as being blue but in reality it usually has a lot more cyan(green and blue) than just blue, especially in the UK with high humidity levels.

Go to high altitude where the air is thin, cold and very dry and a light yellow filter will have a massive effect on skies. But in the UK you usually need more filtration to darken skies. Orange or Red. Problem is that using those filters affects whats on the ground so much that often it ruins the shot. Filters are tricky and dependant atmospheric conditions when it comes to skies.

For example the following image was shot using a light yellow filter at altitude and very cold dry air. The scan is poor quality but the actual print has near complete black using only g2/g3 in the print. i.e. normal with no special effort to get those black skies.


and then the following shot in the UK in summer and looking straight up used a red filter if I remember correctly and requires a G5 to get blacks into the sky and detail in the clouds. Again not a very good scan but it illustrates the point that filters react differently to atmospheric conditions when it comes to skies. Some days are good and others it just doesn't work


Last edited by Argentum; 13th March 2012 at 06:17 PM.
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Old 13th March 2012, 06:38 PM
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I don't know which make of filter you're using but I can certainly vouch for the glass filters of both Rodenstock and Heliopan.
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Old 13th March 2012, 06:54 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MartyNL View Post
I don't know which make of filter you're using but I can certainly vouch for the glass filters of both Rodenstock and Heliopan.
I was using Lee filters
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Old 13th March 2012, 08:49 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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Alan, I would normally use a yellow filter, which I find gives me a look I like day to day, but drama in a photograph is, I find, pretty much dependant upon the conditions, for instance, take 2 photographs of the same landscape, one with a average summer sky with some nice fluffy white clouds, use a yelllow filter will give a pretty normal look, a orange filter will darken the sky a bit more and make the clouds stand out a bit more, and a red filter will make the sky really dark. come back to the same scene with,say, a thundery sky and you will imediatly get a much more dramatic look to the same scene, even with no filter, add an orange or red filter and the whole scene can have a sense of real drama, with everything looking darker,perhaps brooding. as I said earlier, I normally use a yellow filter, but I always carry an orange just in case I get a ''orange'' sky.
I hope this makes some sort of sense and helps, it is easier to show what I mean than to describe it,
Richard
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