Black and White filters

[joachim]

Hi,

with so many people using B&W film here, I was wondering how many of you use the filters (yellow, green, red, orange, etc) on a regular basis.

Please only fill the poll if you shoot more than 5 rolls/year.

[rogue_designer]

yellow on fairly a regular basis. Unless I'm pushing the film a bunch, since the contrast boost may push my highlights beyond what I can save in processing.

red is in the bag for occasional use. Along with an ND .9 so I can open up the 50/1.2 a bit if desired.

[navilluspm]

My Yellow/Green sees the most action outdoors - but I also use a red from time to time (all depends on the colors I am shooting and how I want them rendered).

Indoors - usually none because I usually need to extra speed.

[aperture64]

I have a B+W yellow-orange filter, but it really darkens the sky and gives uneven effects if it is partly cloudy, so I don't use it that much. Using it with Tri-X probably didn't help either.

[mabelsound]

I mostly deal with contrast in lightroom after scanning, so I don't use yellow filters...although I do sometimes use the built-in red filter in my SMC-Pentax 15mm.

[bmattock]

Medium Yellow and Red, mostly.

[Drewus]

Hey guys,

I'm only just getting into playing with B&W film, and was wondering if you could explain how the filters will affect my photo's?

As I understand it, whatever colour I choose will be lightened and the opposite of that colour in the spectrum will be darkened?

What about yellow? considering it is such a prominent colour i'm assuming it would give an all round boost to contrast levels in a shot.

[Spider67]

Orange and Red in then summer

[photo4ls]

I use Yellow most of time and since I just got
a green filter from Dave, I plan to experiment
w/that to see what I can get.

Nelson

[victory12]

Originally Posted by Spider67

Orange and Red in then summer

I use red for architecture and orange for landscape. I use a #29 red for IR film, even Efke, which recommends an 89B or greater. FOr people, I either use a yellow filter (for women to smooth skin) or green for men, to add to their 'swarthiness'. For a surreal bleached out, sci-fi look, I put a 80A cooling filter on.

[maddoc]

Recently I use an orange filter of some kind for BW with all of my most often used lenses, so I have it in E39, E60, and series VII. Still looking for one in 40.5 and E55...

[btgc]

Originally Posted by victory12

FOr people, I either use a yellow filter (for women to smooth skin) or green for men, to add to their 'swarthiness'.

For mixed group portraits yellow-green seems to be best match?

Last summer I used Y-G as all-around filter in the garden and for people and liked it vs naked lens.

[Chris101]

I use red for architecture and orange for landscape. I use a #29 red for IR film, even Efke, which recommends an 89B or greater. FOr people, I either use a yellow filter (for women to smooth skin) or green for men, to add to their 'swarthiness'. For a surreal bleached out, sci-fi look, I put a 80A cooling filter on.

[capitalK]

I use yellow a lot and occasionally red.

[chris000]

I use a medium yellow for most landscape shots and a light red for architecture - the latter works particularly well for red brickwork!

I do also have a light green filter but really only use it for very occasional forays into portraiture as it seems to work well with skin tones

[laptoprob]

I have been trying to figure out how the digital filters work in the R-D1. First conclusion is only enhancing contrast in a somewhat brutal way. Digital red works something like orange, but not quite.
There is no filter like a glass one. You can't reproduce the same effect afterwards afaik.
So I plan to use the filters on the R-D1 like I do sometimes on the Digilux 2. And I just got a B&W 093 IR filter! Time to play!

[c.poulton]

Deep red & Ilford SFX 200 for architectural shoots only.

[FrozenInTime]

Somewhat lazily I have standardized on the B+W 040 orange on all lenses when traveling . They come off went it gets too dark though.

[Nokton48]

I have E39 and E48 Leitz filters, and 40mm and 58mm Canon Slim filters, in yellow, green, orange, and red. Use them all at certain times, depending on subject matter, and desired tonality.

[charjohncarter]

I use red (less Orange, Yellow, and Green; unless I'm doing Gunge or Fringe photogaphy in the style of the Grunge/Fringe Guru; Chris101) with B&W film, but I hate loosing the shadows so I usually take two shots: one with the other without. I also don't like the fact that the in camera meter is not as accurate with the filter on so I tend to use my totally manual cameras and a handheld or the VCII. It took me some time to get the filter factors accurate with my filters so I like to adjust the f stop by hand.

[morback]

My yellow is pretty much glued to my Sonnar which is pretty much glued to my ZI.
All I want is for the clouds and the sky to separate and nice tonality overall.
And it helps protect my lens too since I don't believe in lens caps.

[shimokita]

Yellow is always on the lens (Fujifilm NEOPAN 400 is almost always the film of choice). Like most no filter in low light and even though it's not part of the questionnaire, the PL is almost the only other filter that gets some use.

Casey

[DougFord]

I always use a yellow filter on my RF camera but when using a P&S (grv1 or contax 3) i don't.

[joachim]

Hi,

looking at the so far poll results, we see a clear double peak distribution. Many folks use these filters on over half of their images (categories 50% - 80%, and 80% - 100%) while many others rarely use them (blow 10%).
While I find the later not that surprising (a mixture out of can't be asked and I need every photon I could possibly get to reach my film) I hadn't expected the high number members using them a lot.
While here are lots of discussion about films, developers and even printing, I rarely found these filters discussed.
As I said, the poll was very interesting and revealed a completely different picture from what I expected.

Thanks to everyone who participated so far.
Joachim

[craygc]

Never on small format (135), 40% of the time on medium format (6x7)