Filters for Black and white and M cameras

[Annibale G.]

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Do you use filters for your B/W photography with your M camera? Which ones? and in what occasions?

Annibale

[stunsworth]

When I'm shooting b&w with the M6 I have a yellow filter on the camera most of the time to darken the sky an emphasise the contrast between clouds and sky.

 

Occasionally I'll use an orange filter if I want that contrast to be even greater, and a red filter if I want the greatest contrast. Red filters do horrible things with caucasian skin tones - makes them very white.

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[el.nino]

same here. yellow and orange most of the time.

[topoxforddoc]

Yellow most of the time too. Occasionally red when I want really dark moody skies

 

Charlie

[Annibale G.]

Do you suggest any use of the filters for reportage photography ?

[luigi bertolotti]

I'm an avid mountaineer.. and UV is mandatory over 2000 meters... both for BW and color, for it's easy to have a certain impression of out-of-focus expecially with 90/135.

In mountains, also orange or even red can give a value for contrast: red is great on glaciers.

[sender]

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Green and yellow/green is very useful too - helps with contrast in the sky, and great for eyes and skin.

[lct]

Digital filters (Epson's) might help to compare.

 

Color no filter:

http://tinyurl.com/rv7w/EPSN3275_conofi-afterweb.jpg

 

BW no filter:

http://tinyurl.com/rv7w/EPSN3275_bwnofi-afterweb.jpg

 

BW green filter:

http://tinyurl.com/rv7w/EPSN3275_bwgrfi-afterweb.jpg

 

BW yellow filter:

http://tinyurl.com/rv7w/EPSN3275_bwyefi-afterweb.jpg

 

BW red filter:

http://tinyurl.com/rv7w/EPSN3275_bwrefi-afterweb.jpg

[octo]

Yellow, yellow-green, orange and red. The first one being used most.

[lars_bergquist]

Since the early 1960's, improved optical cement (!) and coatings make Leica lenses pretty impervious to UV. So clear UVa filters are for mechanical protection only, but as such worthwhile.

 

Black and white with the M8 and the DMR is an entirely different matter. Color filters are not needed if you shoot DNGs and use a PP app with a channel mixer (read: PhotoShop) so that you can vary the contributions of the blue and red channels, thus simulating the effects of filters in the yellow-orange-red series. But if you shoot JPGs – blasphemous thought – you will need these filters just as when you are using film. With the exception of the yellow. Removing the UV/IR filter is enough, the native extended red and IR sensitivity does approximate an yellow filter, darkening blue sky and also lightening foliage.

 

The old man from the Age of the Yellow Filter

[cbretteville]

Yellow as a general rule, red for more effect and yellow-green when shooting people.

 

- C

[spydrxx]

Mostly yellow for outdoor photography, red where I want high contrast between clouds and the sky (but the greenery turns pretty dark). Used to use a green, but no longer. I assume you are talking about filters for film use rather than digital.

[lars_bergquist]

The yellow-green filter 'should' reduce both blue and red. This idea however rests on some very simplistic thinking about object colours, i.e. spectral reflectances. Actual tests show that a yellow-green filter does only what a yellow filter does, but with more loss of speed (about 1 f-stop, as against 1/2 for the medium yellow). Such tests were in fact done already during the 1930's, but the result seems unable to budge the preconceived notions. The use of the yellow-green filter does seem mostly limited to Germany however.

 

The green filter on the other hand does indeed darken red. The influence on blue seems no greater than that of the yellow filter, though. This filter was introduced during the 1930's, when some early panchromatic films (mostly 'fast' films, but also early Kodak Panatomic) exhibited an extended red sensitivity which gave light-skinned people the "panchro sickness", making them look positively tubercular. The use of this filter, outside landscape work – where yellow is more economic of light – decreased with the advent of pan films with a more even spectral sensitivity.

 

Conclusion: You don't need any damn green filters.

 

The old man from the Age of the Soap Box

[Kasimir]

Heliopan states in it's instruction sheets that yellow filters reduce the light less or the same as green filters do. Maybe green filters are used in Germany because of this. I myself use them in Norway and find the results for landscapes - especially in spring - pleasing.

[stunsworth]

Conclusion: You don't need any damn green filters

 

So what would you recommend to lighten foliage?

[lars_bergquist]

Ewald: I do not doubt that, I contend only (with good reason, I think) that a yellow filter would do the same job and save you one half stop of speed.

 

Steve: A medium yellow filter with film. With a M8, just unscrew the IR/UV filter and put it in your shirt pocket ...

 

The old man from the Age of Wratten Filters