This is a really well grounded teaching on the effect of colour filters on B&W film. There is a very nice smattering of excellent technical info along the way. It’s obvious that Rob is pulling these jewels out of a life-time supply of ‘mistakes, learn, re-shoot’. A very nice style of teaching. Thank you, Rob.
A funny story about the Eastman house. A group of us car pooled from Toronto on a day trip. It happened to be for the Edward Weston show a number of years ago. When we arrive, the gallery says they had a flood last night and the wing with the Weston show is closed because there's water on the floor. Ok, we just drove from another country to see it. So they say, go see the rest of the shows and comeback at the end and we'll see what can be done. At the end of our tour we returned and they took us in the back room, where they had brought out a bunch of great Weston shots from the vault, including platinum prints and silver prints of the same image, plus many photos... and we got to handle the unframed work!!!
In the pre-digital days, astrophotographers used the “hat trick” to begin and end an exposure: To begin the exposure, hold a black hat in front of the lens (maybe surrounding the lens if it’s a bowler hat!). Open the shutter. Remove the hat and begin timing the exposure. Finishing the exposure: block the light path to the film w/ the hat, then close the shutter.
I appreciate your depth of knowledge and easy to follow explanations! I've been experimenting with gradated filters to have different colour filters on for the sky and ground subjects, getting some interesting results
Sometimes a yellow-green or green filter might be the way to go - darkens blue and red, lightens green. Might give a more pleasing landscape with "fresh" greens (lighter in the B&W image). Harder to come by (X0 is a lighter yellow-green, X1 a darker green) than red, orange and yellow. Also useful for architecture. And then there is blue - a blue filter gives an orthochromatic or even a very old-style effect with extremely light blues and nearly black reds (depends on the filter) …
A lot of useful information. Nice to hear someone articulate the issue with medium-slow shutter speeds (on cameras with no mirror lockup). It’s a consideration I will make going forward.
I just wanted to thank you for all the information youre sharing. So far this is the best explanation of filters with black and white photography that I've seen in TH-cam. I'm pretty new to analog/black and white photography. Because of your great explanations I've become a lot better at shooting black and white, and rarely shoot color because I like black and white so much now. I hope to see a lot more like this video's and maybe even more in-depth information like zone-system lighting, contrast and pushing/ pulling film bcause you can expplain it so well. Thank you!
Hi a Polarising filter is another way i cut glare on a still life, also on a landscape your sky will darken plus you still have shadow details. Plus you can use a colour filter with a Polariser to get the effects you describe. Thanks for highlighting the effects of filters with Black and White film.👍
Great video! Some good ideas for photo projects. I did a pepper still life project 30+ years ago on a Mamiya C-3 with green peppers, I'll have to find those negatives. It's about time to do a pepper project with my 4x5 with different colors of both filters and peppers 😊.
Interesting discussion. I tend to just use a yellow filter on the Nikon F3 but you have convinced me to go for the Orange. Rather than repeating the exercise with a yellow pepper I would rather you showed more examples re landscapes etc.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite great news. If you do it would be wonderful to see side by side photo comparisons that show at a glance the clear differences.
I've been curious about how shutter speeds influence sharpness when using a tripod. Thank you for clarifying! Also, this is the best b/w filter video I've seen on you tube.
This is really interesting. I have been struggling to get sharp images with a recently acquired refurbished Pentacon Six, Biometar 2.8/80. Having shot 4 rolls so far the results were inconsistent. Fast shutter speeds were okay (1/60-1/1000), both handheld and on an old no-name budget tripod. But the range 1/2-1/8 resulted strange looking unsharp images, no drama, but definitively not great. Then I took two night exposures , at 1sec and at 2 sec. Both are of great sharpness. Then I had guessed what you explained and invested in a sturdy tripod - to be soon tested.If it does not solve the issue I will avoid the speed range 1/2-1/30 - so there are two options to do. Thanks for your experience shared.
It's such a tough thing to find out where the unsharpness comes from. If you can shoot in a dark room with flash, you'll see how sharp the lens is because the flash will freeze everything.
On Nikon FE2 / F4 with Ilford HP5/FP4 or others panchromatic films, I had to add for orange and red an exposure compensation by +2/3 or more (depending on how strong colored the filter are and on subject) to get not an underexposure for average subject when using build-in camera meter. Yellow was ok. Reason is that the spectral sensitivity of camera (but also of camera sensors) diff a bit to the films. The more you go into the extremes toward blue/UV or red/infra-red the more likely you see differences. Consider also that e.g with a red filter in typical landscape scenario with a lot of green and blue. your pictures get a lot of dark up to black picture elements, which also cause easily miss reading of the camera sensor similar to normal (without filter) low key scenario with a lot of dark/black picture elements. This effect is independent and additional to the spectral sensitivity topic. BTW: There are also yellow-green and blue (and others). While for me blue was never very interesting (who wants to make sky even brighter, etc.), is yellow-green interesting to differentiate multiple green tones better.
A very interesting video. Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge. I don’t shoot film (anymore) but digital with a dedicated B&W camera (it’s not possible to make color photos with this camera but I’m sure you know). I started with an orange filter and it’s kinda glued on my lens. I did order a red one too. I’m curious about the red filter.
The problem with macro (micro) lenses is that your DOF get really shallow even stepped down, a extension ring might be better - I did lots of flowers with extension rings with some positive results (digital). As for the 24 or 36 frames per film, and developing - roll your own, then you can make roles of 5 or 10 frames per film.
It's just that I had the best set of lenses, which are also sold, and I had an 8x10 enlarger. It would be hard to start all over needing that much kit.
I mostly use yellow and orange filters and rarely use red. I never use the green and blue filters. When I shoot stills, I just use my Mamiya RB67 with 140mm macro or the Toyo 45A 4x5. I have the Hasselblad but can’t get close enough as I don’t have the 120mm makro yet. Thanks for the info!!!!!!
Only use red for dramatic skies. I’ve found a somewhat rare green/yellow, as in Leica GGR or Hoya XO, best for general all the time. Better than yellow and less than a stop, they just give a little pop.
Outstanding video. Just getting into film and b&w film photography. The one question that kept bouncing around my head was what would happen if you stacked the filters? Would thestack filters simply deat what you were trying to create or would there be a subtle difference between the the single filters? In other words, would a stacked yellow and orange filter make it too dark so you might as well use a red filter or would be just little darker that an a single orange filter? You got me wanting to play with my cameras, thank you. 😊
Thank you for your rationale regarding that red filter and your filter tech info. Do you prefer a grey card as opposed to and incident meter reading off of a Sekonic or Gossen? In the street I'll take a camera meter reading off of a darkish shadowed grey concrete wall, grass, or pavement. I guess that's as close to incident reading as a guy could get in a pinch.
I've done it a bunch of different ways over the years. I'm currently using a spot meter, mostly because I want to learn how to use it and also because it's so consistent. It's usually not possible to use a grey card outside the studio, so I don't carry one. A lot of it's trial and error over the years.
I use aa B+W 092 on digital camera (A7, or D700, or 5D - un-modified) walkaround in woods, the shutter speed is fast (no tripod), and the high contrast images can produce interesting results (sunshine on trees, leaves, trunks). adding a Zeiss Softar filter to this combination also works well, although the softar seems to work better on Zeiss lenses (Jena 20mm F4) than more modern lenses (on modern lenses the softar seems to flare or cloud up).
I really struggle with the idea of fast shutter speeds using a B+W 092 in the woods producing sharp high contrast results on an unmodified camera.. it is basically opaque visually with a transmission curve that would leave any unmodified off the shelf digital camera in the dark..
Yeah, the B+W 092 is a very dark red filter for Infrared shooting. I was shooting with one the other day and the effect on the negatives was really streaky. Not sure what went wrong. Fail, learn and try again I guess, but I'm not sure I learned anything yet.
Those longer exposures need a reciprocity correction. Speaking tip: Never use the word "what" unless you are asking a question. This will force you to speak directly. "What you want to do is increase the exposure" becomes "Increase the exposure" or "Now increase the exposure", etc. It takes practice. Red is great for clouds in landscapes..
You discarded the Polarising filter but when you combine a 25 red for landscape you can adjust the effect by turning the circular polarising filter. My concern there has always been the degradation of the lens because filters are not ground as well as the lens. Do you agree with the concern about filter quality?
This is a really well grounded teaching on the effect of colour filters on B&W film. There is a very nice smattering of excellent technical info along the way. It’s obvious that Rob is pulling these jewels out of a life-time supply of ‘mistakes, learn, re-shoot’. A very nice style of teaching. Thank you, Rob.
Glad you enjoyed it.
That explanation about how shooting at slower shutters yield sharper images is genius.
That's what makes it so interesting.
Nice, I asked you a few questions about your use of orange filters some time ago, great to see a dedicated video on the subject!
I shot the peppers in Feb., just getting the video done now. lol
Rob, great tips as always. I’ve just added the Eastman Museum as a stop on my motorcycle trip in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to it.
A funny story about the Eastman house. A group of us car pooled from Toronto on a day trip. It happened to be for the Edward Weston show a number of years ago. When we arrive, the gallery says they had a flood last night and the wing with the Weston show is closed because there's water on the floor. Ok, we just drove from another country to see it. So they say, go see the rest of the shows and comeback at the end and we'll see what can be done. At the end of our tour we returned and they took us in the back room, where they had brought out a bunch of great Weston shots from the vault, including platinum prints and silver prints of the same image, plus many photos... and we got to handle the unframed work!!!
@stillshootinginblackandwhite that would have been amazing. I'll be on the way back on my Hamilton to Newfoundland trip.
That sounds like a long trip!!
In the pre-digital days, astrophotographers used the “hat trick” to begin and end an exposure:
To begin the exposure, hold a black hat in front of the lens (maybe surrounding the lens if it’s a bowler hat!). Open the shutter. Remove the hat and begin timing the exposure.
Finishing the exposure: block the light path to the film w/ the hat, then close the shutter.
Yeah, that's useful. I've done similar in the studio.
I appreciate your depth of knowledge and easy to follow explanations! I've been experimenting with gradated filters to have different colour filters on for the sky and ground subjects, getting some interesting results
Great to hear! I've thought of using a gradated orange, but don't currently have one.
Sometimes a yellow-green or green filter might be the way to go - darkens blue and red, lightens green. Might give a more pleasing landscape with "fresh" greens (lighter in the B&W image). Harder to come by (X0 is a lighter yellow-green, X1 a darker green) than red, orange and yellow. Also useful for architecture. And then there is blue - a blue filter gives an orthochromatic or even a very old-style effect with extremely light blues and nearly black reds (depends on the filter) …
Thanks, those are good tips.
A lot of useful information. Nice to hear someone articulate the issue with medium-slow shutter speeds (on cameras with no mirror lockup). It’s a consideration I will make going forward.
Glad it was helpful!
I just wanted to thank you for all the information youre sharing. So far this is the best explanation of filters with black and white photography that I've seen in TH-cam.
I'm pretty new to analog/black and white photography. Because of your great explanations I've become a lot better at shooting black and white, and rarely shoot color because I like black and white so much now. I hope to see a lot more like this video's and maybe even more in-depth information like zone-system lighting, contrast and pushing/ pulling film bcause you can expplain it so well. Thank you!
Glad you're enjoying it.
Hi a Polarising filter is another way i cut glare on a still life, also on a landscape your sky will darken plus you still have shadow details. Plus you can use a colour filter with a Polariser to get the effects you describe.
Thanks for highlighting the effects of filters with Black and White film.👍
Glad you enjoyed it. Those are good tips.
Great video! Some good ideas for photo projects. I did a pepper still life project 30+ years ago on a Mamiya C-3 with green peppers, I'll have to find those negatives. It's about time to do a pepper project with my 4x5 with different colors of both filters and peppers 😊.
Great, glad I started this, now we're having fun.
Interesting discussion.
I tend to just use a yellow filter on the Nikon F3 but you have convinced me to go for the Orange.
Rather than repeating the exercise with a yellow pepper I would rather you showed more examples re landscapes etc.
I think you're right. I'll work on that.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite great news.
If you do it would be wonderful to see side by side photo comparisons that show at a glance the clear differences.
That will be the plan.
I've been curious about how shutter speeds influence sharpness when using a tripod. Thank you for clarifying!
Also, this is the best b/w filter video I've seen on you tube.
Thanks. Glad it was useful to you.
This is really interesting. I have been struggling to get sharp images with a recently acquired refurbished Pentacon Six, Biometar 2.8/80. Having shot 4 rolls so far the results were inconsistent. Fast shutter speeds were okay (1/60-1/1000), both handheld and on an old no-name budget tripod. But the range 1/2-1/8 resulted strange looking unsharp images, no drama, but definitively not great.
Then I took two night exposures , at 1sec and at 2 sec. Both are of great sharpness. Then I had guessed what you explained and invested in a sturdy tripod - to be soon tested.If it does not solve the issue I will avoid the speed range 1/2-1/30 - so there are two options to do. Thanks for your experience shared.
It's such a tough thing to find out where the unsharpness comes from. If you can shoot in a dark room with flash, you'll see how sharp the lens is because the flash will freeze everything.
On Nikon FE2 / F4 with Ilford HP5/FP4 or others panchromatic films, I had to add for orange and red an exposure compensation by +2/3 or more (depending on how strong colored the filter are and on subject) to get not an underexposure for average subject when using build-in camera meter. Yellow was ok. Reason is that the spectral sensitivity of camera (but also of camera sensors) diff a bit to the films. The more you go into the extremes toward blue/UV or red/infra-red the more likely you see differences.
Consider also that e.g with a red filter in typical landscape scenario with a lot of green and blue. your pictures get a lot of dark up to black picture elements, which also cause easily miss reading of the camera sensor similar to normal (without filter) low key scenario with a lot of dark/black picture elements. This effect is independent and additional to the spectral sensitivity topic.
BTW: There are also yellow-green and blue (and others). While for me blue was never very interesting (who wants to make sky even brighter, etc.), is yellow-green interesting to differentiate multiple green tones better.
Those are good points, thanks for the tips.
A very interesting video. Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge. I don’t shoot film (anymore) but digital with a dedicated B&W camera (it’s not possible to make color photos with this camera but I’m sure you know). I started with an orange filter and it’s kinda glued on my lens. I did order a red one too. I’m curious about the red filter.
Of the three filters, I use orange the most, but playing around with the other two as well.
really amusing and informative .... I really appreciate your channel .....
Thanks, glad you're enjoying them.
Thank you for your clear explanation about these filters. And I'm going to try to photograph a pepper this week... Nice idea...🙂
Glad it was helpful!
The problem with macro (micro) lenses is that your DOF get really shallow even stepped down, a extension ring might be better - I did lots of flowers with extension rings with some positive results (digital). As for the 24 or 36 frames per film, and developing - roll your own, then you can make roles of 5 or 10 frames per film.
Yes, that makes sense.
Rob, I can imagine you with another 8x10 camera for YT teaching purposes.
Thanks again.
It's just that I had the best set of lenses, which are also sold, and I had an 8x10 enlarger. It would be hard to start all over needing that much kit.
I mostly use yellow and orange filters and rarely use red. I never use the green and blue filters. When I shoot stills, I just use my Mamiya RB67 with 140mm macro or the Toyo 45A 4x5. I have the Hasselblad but can’t get close enough as I don’t have the 120mm makro yet. Thanks for the info!!!!!!
Glad you found it useful.
Thanks for a very informative video.
Did you take any red, green, and yellow pepper group shots that were filterd with the different colored filters?
No that would have been too easy. Maybe next time.lol
Only use red for dramatic skies. I’ve found a somewhat rare green/yellow, as in Leica GGR or Hoya XO, best for general all the time. Better than yellow and less than a stop, they just give a little pop.
Thanks, great to know.
Interesting video. Just curious what did you use for lighting for these and how much do you think that affected the tonal outcome
Just the light from the window. No direct light, just open shade.
Outstanding video. Just getting into film and b&w film photography. The one question that kept bouncing around my head was what would happen if you stacked the filters? Would thestack filters simply deat what you were trying to create or would there be a subtle difference between the the single filters? In other words, would a stacked yellow and orange filter make it too dark so you might as well use a red filter or would be just little darker that an a single orange filter? You got me wanting to play with my cameras, thank you. 😊
I think you should try that and see. Sounds like fun.
Thanks- very good info!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you for your rationale regarding that red filter and your filter tech info. Do you prefer a grey card as opposed to and incident meter reading off of a Sekonic or Gossen? In the street I'll take a camera meter reading off of a darkish shadowed grey concrete wall, grass, or pavement. I guess that's as close to incident reading as a guy could get in a pinch.
I've done it a bunch of different ways over the years. I'm currently using a spot meter, mostly because I want to learn how to use it and also because it's so consistent. It's usually not possible to use a grey card outside the studio, so I don't carry one. A lot of it's trial and error over the years.
I use aa B+W 092 on digital camera (A7, or D700, or 5D - un-modified) walkaround in woods, the shutter speed is fast (no tripod), and the high contrast images can produce interesting results (sunshine on trees, leaves, trunks). adding a Zeiss Softar filter to this combination also works well, although the softar seems to work better on Zeiss lenses (Jena 20mm F4) than more modern lenses (on modern lenses the softar seems to flare or cloud up).
Those are good ideas and sound like fun.
I really struggle with the idea of fast shutter speeds using a B+W 092 in the woods producing sharp high contrast results on an unmodified camera.. it is basically opaque visually with a transmission curve that would leave any unmodified off the shelf digital camera in the dark..
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite don't know what a 092 is?
Yeah, the B+W 092 is a very dark red filter for Infrared shooting. I was shooting with one the other day and the effect on the negatives was really streaky. Not sure what went wrong. Fail, learn and try again I guess, but I'm not sure I learned anything yet.
Those longer exposures need a reciprocity correction. Speaking tip: Never use the word "what" unless you are asking a question. This will force you to speak directly. "What you want to do is increase the exposure" becomes "Increase the exposure" or "Now increase the exposure", etc. It takes practice. Red is great for clouds in landscapes..
Thanks, I'll try and do that.
When you say double the exposure do you mean go up to the higher number or the lower number on F stop? Ty
You need to open up one stop. So if you were at f11, now go to f8. Let one stop more of light onto the film.
You discarded the Polarising filter but when you combine a 25 red for landscape you can adjust
the effect by turning the circular polarising filter. My concern there has always been the degradation of the lens because filters are not ground as well as the lens. Do you agree with
the concern about filter quality?
Polarizing filter seems to be the most ignored filter, even tho it can have significant effect on your picture.
Let me do some testing and I'll find out.
@@stillshootinginblackandwhite Thank you.
!
You need to look at the work of " Charles Jones " and a book of his images called " The Plant Kingdom "
Good idea, I'll take a look.
A bowl of persimmons would be fun.
Yeah, that would work too. lol