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  #11  
Old 14th March 2012, 11:21 PM
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Carl V Carl V is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AlanJones View Post
How does one get a more dramatic result?
I always carry yellow, orange, red and green filters in my bag for my black & white work, and apart from to change over to stronger filters, I tend to leave the yellow on all the time as this gives a more natural look to the sky/clouds than no filter at all. Even a UV filter won't do a great deal in this case.

You will notice a difference applying the orange filter, and even more of a difference when using a red. Depending on the circumstances, either of these two filters can produce a wonderful landscape and sky shot.

I would suggest personally you try several shots using all the filters and process the film yourself - you will see what a difference they can make.
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  #12  
Old 19th March 2012, 11:17 AM
AlanJones AlanJones is offline
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Default Filters: Choices and uses.

Thanks to all of you who have replied to my original post.

I am going to put the previous bad experience down to the processing. The year before I had a colour reversal film treated as a colour neg film by the same shop, but thinking there would not be another mistake with the mono film, but I was wrong. Incidentally both the films were bought there. I can only comment that I thought it was not the kind of error that would be made by an old established independent photographic dealer in Reading, Berks., virtually opposite the railway station. The end result is that I am now doing my own mono and colour films again and there is much to catch up on.

I am still going to set up my camera on a tripod, take a control example without a filter and then take other shots with the various filters which will show me what the results look like. I had hoped to have done this by now and despite four days of sunshine last week the sky was cloudless and the only visible interest was the occasional vapour trail left by aircraft.

It would be interesting to hear from others about the use of polarizing filters, or perhaps, when not to use them. I have used one and got a good result on colour slide film when I was on a riverside walk. I forgot to take it off the lens and the next two frames looked really weird, just like some of the results I have seen published in magazines recently. The colours were deeper, but appeared to be greatly under exposed. The through the lens metering on an OM2SP did not seem to work with this filter or take the filter into account.
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  #13  
Old 19th March 2012, 12:24 PM
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Alan

Try to find out which type of polarizer you have. Thaere are two kinds, linear and circular. This has nothing to do with the shape but the way the light is polarized. (it may say "lin" or "circ") on the filter

Some metering systems only work with the circular type and this may be why you are getting underexposure
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  #14  
Old 19th March 2012, 04:10 PM
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Ian,

Thanks for your reply. There is nothing on the filter that I used. But I do have one with circ and one with lin engraved on it. The camera was an Olympus OM2N so I can't say if it had a silver or semi-silvered mirror which would again may have a bearing on the result.

There were about five polarisers in the box of filters I have. All I can say it was a round filter that when screwed into the lens, the filter could be rotated further and could be locked in a desired position by a thumbscrew. No writing or graduation at all.
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  #15  
Old 19th March 2012, 08:50 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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In B&W polarisers when turned to give max effect will in my experience give similar cloud effects as say a deep yellow, maybe an orange. Certainly enough to bring out the clouds in a blue sky.

A plus to a polariser is that unlike any of the coloured ones it will not change the colour tones so greens etc remain much as they would without a filter.

Of course in instances where you want both cloud effects and a differentiation in greens and reds then the colour filters will be needed.

If you want a really dramatic sky then try a red with a polariser. Just bear in mind that exposure times increase quite a lot and without a tripod a medium fast film will be better for hand-holdable times and watch for vignetting with anything approaching 28mm( in a 35mm camera, that is).

I've managed good handheld shots with 400 film using this combo and certainly with my equipment the sky doesn't look ridiculously dramatic or "over the top"


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  #16  
Old 19th March 2012, 11:20 PM
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Black and white sky drama comes from exaggerating the contrast between blue sky and clouds. In order of over-the-top-ness:

1. Yellow filter
2. Grad red or grad ND filter
3. Red filter
4. Red filter+Polariser
5. Red+Pol+grad ND
6. Infrared film+IR filter = black sky+white clouds

If there is no blue sky but the clouds have some modulation then filter strategies still work but the effect is much milder. Put it down to subject failure.
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  #17  
Old 20th March 2012, 07:58 AM
Dave miller Dave miller is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Maris View Post
Black and white sky drama comes from exaggerating the contrast between blue sky and clouds. In order of over-the-top-ness:

1. Yellow filter
2. Grad red or grad ND filter
3. Red filter
4. Red filter+Polariser
5. Red+Pol+grad ND
6. Infrared film+IR filter = black sky+white clouds

If there is no blue sky but the clouds have some modulation then filter strategies still work but the effect is much milder. Put it down to subject failure.
I suspect that English sky's generally need more effort to beat life into them than the Australian version does.
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  #18  
Old 20th March 2012, 11:14 AM
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I've often been surprised by people's use of orange and red filters to enhance a sky with no visible blue content. Perhaps there is a small effect but I certainly find a yellow to be the most useful in all outdoor scenes (which might be down to our dull English skies).

My biggest issue with the orange and red filters is the way they kill the shadows - yes, it can be compensated for with exposure and development but I find it easier to live with the effect a yellow filter gives and add anything else at the printing stage.

Steve
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  #19  
Old 20th March 2012, 11:32 AM
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I tend to use a yellow/green filter for landscape work in the hope that it will darken the blue bits whilst lightening the greenery slightly.
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  #20  
Old 20th March 2012, 10:13 PM
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I am a keen user of both the Green and Yellow/Green Filters.

While they may or may not do much for the sky, they do pep up the foliage quite a lot.

The trouble with giving advice about what filters will achieve what with the sky is - the sky is very inconsistent.

If you live in the UK and you get a lot of blanket grey cloud, then only a Grad Filter will manage to bring any detail into the clouds (they are back-lit translucent objects after all)

On a nice UK sunny day with of clouds dotted around you get about half the effect you see in the Hoya brochure, due to the amount of water in the sky from the Gulf Stream.

Go somewhere hot and really dry (southern Spain, Australian outback, the western USA) - then with a sky almost devoid of moisture, the effect of the various filters is much greater than shown in the Hoya catalogue.

As others have noted, filters which darken skies also darken shadows too - as scattered blue sky light fills in the shadows - so darkening the blue of the sky also darkens the blue light in the shadows.

The advice of trying it for yourself - with careful notes, is a very sound piece of advice, although it is also worth trying it under different weather conditions (dull, lightly overcast, watery sun, bright sun and those few odd days each year when we get bright clear skies when the weather comes from off the continent)

The effects of the filters will be different for each weather scenario - in time you do learn to gauge what sort of effect each filter will do for you.

Have fun and good luck

Martin
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