Warming lens filters (81A, 81B, 81C) on color film

[A miller]

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Can the experts please educate me on the situations in which they deem it appropriate to use these filters with Kodak Ektar and Kodak Portra (either 160 or 400) when shooting landscapes.  I understand the general concept but would like to hear opinions regarding which specific situations dictate the use of which of these filters when using each of these films.

 

For example, what would be effective with a scene involving foilage, a pond and building int he background in the very early morning light (just after sunrise).  Or, shooting a cityscape (involving buildings, water and bridges) in the late afternoon, early evening under golden light.  Are these filters effective at these magic hours, or only under those conditions in which there is a clearly visible cool WB in the air (with those uninteresting blueish hues)??

 

Thank you in advance, Adam

 

 

 

[adan]

First - those warming lens filters are most important with slide film, where what's on the film is the final image (at least for projection, or impressing art directors with originals). You have to get the color right in the camera, or go nuts trying to put filters in front of a slide projector lens with each slide change, or sliding them into the slide mounts for light-box viewing (although people have done that last).

 

Since color negs have to go through color reversal and color-correction in any case to become a useful photo, pre-correcting the image a minor amount with an 81 filter just doesn't add that much.

 

Although - Ektar 100 does tend to go electric blue in shadows, at least here in Colorado with our big bowl of intense blue sky acting as fill light. So they might well help in cleaning up that particular effect. I don't use them - I just have a simple Photoshop fix (Selective color > blacks > add yellow ink 12% (or whatever)). But overall blue from UV in landscapes - just warm up the color balance overall in scanning or lab printing.

 

The primary landscape filter for color is the polarizer. Not just for skies (although it always does that), but because foliage/leaves have a waxy coating that reflects the sky (blue/grey/white) and desaturates the greens, or the reds/yellows of autumn. A polarizer can block those surface reflections and let the true colors of the foliage through, uncontaminated with blue-white, and without changing other colors much. The same applies, in varying amounts, to shiny man-made colorful objects. And water.

 

It does kinda depend on your own work flow, however. If you are scanning your own film, you have direct control of the whole creation of color. If you are just letting a lab print for you, then the filters might (or might not) force a different color correction. Although it can backfire.

 

Way back when in my first post-college job at a camera store, a woman came in to pick up her color-neg snapshots. She said "I'm really interested to see if anything came out - because I accidentally left my #15 (deep) yellow filter on when I shot this roll." The upshot was that her prints looked fine, except for really intense dark blue skies. Our automated print machine had simply dialed out all the yellow, as it would for indoor tungsten-lit pictures. So unless you coordinate with the lab, their machine may just dial out your 81(whatever).

Edited July 23, 2015 by adan

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[jaapv]

From sad experience - it may have worked on negative film -that was quite heavily masked anyway- but if you leave a yellow filter on accidentally on a digital file you have a hell of a job trying to get it to look "normal" Once you get the blue looking correct you will have the red and the green shifted. As this is probably caused by the way RGB works (luminance and colour combined) it might be possible to get the result right in LAB. I never tried, but just gave up and converted to B&W...

[MarkP]

From sad experience - it may have worked on negative film -that was quite heavily masked anyway- but if you leave a yellow filter on accidentally on a digital file you have a hell of a job trying to get it to look "normal" Once you get the blue looking correct you will have the red and the green shifted. As this is probably caused by the way RGB works (luminance and colour combined) it might be possible to get the result right in LAB. I never tried, but just gave up and converted to B&W...

I made a similar mistake once with an orange filter on the M9. Also gave up and converted to B&W.

[honcho]

Can the experts please educate me on the situations in which they deem it appropriate to use these filters with Kodak Ektar and Kodak Portra (either 160 or 400) when shooting landscapes. 

 

Neither appropriate or necessary with negative films, colour adjustments are made at the printing stage.  I can't remember the last time I used an 81 series on transparency film, either.  Unless you are supplying transparencies (no one does) or projecting, they are all mainly redundant now, unlike polarising filters, nd grads and nd filters which are all just as relevant and useful as ever.

Edited July 23, 2015 by honcho

[jaapv]

Sorry btw, for taking this OT in a film forum..

[gyoung]

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I dont think its because luminance and colour are combined, but as you have used a yellow filter virtually nothing is recorded by the blue channel, and only the 'yellow' parts of the blue and green values, so impossible to retrieve to 'normal'?

Digital equivalent of crossed curves?

 

Getting back to the op's question, I have a full set of Wratten gelatins I used to use on transparency film, and occasionally on neg film in known situations where lighting was difficult, eg at Earls Court in London the lighting was some sort of pressure discharge lamps with a weird spectrum, neither Ektacolor S or L would give a decent print without some help

 

Gery

[A miller]

thanks to everyone (esp Adan) for their time and thoughts.  I have been doing some research on the use of Ektar vs portra for landscapes and have read a LOT of people saying that in order to get Ektar to sing as it should and not produce undesirable results one should FIRST make sure that the film is not overexposed (unlike the workflow one might use for regular C41 color negative film) (even to rate the film at 80 rather than 100 and stick to that) and SECOND to make sure that the color temperatures are all in balance.  Many people seem to achieve the balance by using an 81A or B warming filter.  This makes a lot of sense to me for many landscapes as even the color scanned film shots that I see online (also on this forum) allow the cool light to dominate the scene (and ruin it, IMHO) and it seems that an appropriate use of an 81A (which seems to be a simple skylight filter, which his subtle) or an 81B filter could achieve a color balance that the photographer actually saw in the scene when he shot it (as the coolness isn't always that noticeable to our eyes when we are in the scene).  

 

Correcting color of a film scan in PP is many times possible but not always unless one is an expert at the masking workflow of PS, which I am not.  Blueish hues permeating a horizon can be warmed up by warming up the WB but then everything else gets warmed, which often isn't ideal.  Desaturating the blues is another option, but also far from ideal.

 

It just seems to me that film shooters should be considering using these filters more.  

 

I have purchased an 81B filter and was going to experiment with it with Ektar and see for myself.

 

Are these warming filters appropriate also for scenes in which the light is warm (such as early morning or the end of the day)?

 

Also, anyone use these filters for specific C41 color films and can comment?

 

Many thanks again,

Adam

[sblitz]

Generally speaking I used to use these filters when the light was not daylight and the film was -- indoor shoots with daylight balanced film took on that yellow warm look or green in an office (fluorescent). In was also fun to shoot tungsten or floodlight balanced film outside, or adjust with the right filter. Still have these somewhere in the closet. Today, shoot daylight film inside and there is a slider to adjust for that in PP. Not sure the filters will help you with Ektar, of course part of the fun with film is trying (not as if this is an expensive experiment). Personally, I have never really got the results from Ektar that others have, including during my recent trip to the Lake District in England. The pictures always seemed too red to me and found, and unlike what you wrote above, over exposing gave a better result than underexposing BUT Eltar shined when exposure was perfect (let your M7 do the thinking!). Never shined for me even when perfect, am I looking for something last pastel like than Portra. Maybe w/o the cataracts Ektar will look better (one eye w/o is now seeing things brighter and bluer). Report back on your experiment, will be interesting to read.

[A miller]

Thanks, Steve.  It seems as though the warming filters are most effective on cloudy days and also hazy sunny days where there is significant blue on the horizon or in the shadows.  

The Film thread is FULL of landscapes and other scenes with unbalanced color temperatures.  People have expressed surprise and frustration as to why and how their scans show up with so much blue hues.  In addition to not spending enough time with the WB setting in their PP workflow, it would seem to me that another, perhaps more significant reason, is that the color temperatures in the given scene were on the cool side (which is not always visible to the nakd eye) and that this wasn't compensated for through warming filters.

 

Having a more properly color temperature-balanced negative to start with ought to be a very good thing as the WB adjustments in PP will be more balanced and natural looking.

This has all made me wonder whether people who are either new to film or have switchd primarily to digital but still shoot film have lost sight of the need to pay attention to the temperature of the natural light and balance it out in the shooting process rather than the PP process (which is the only choice with digital other than through the WB setting of the camera).

[sblitz]

Worth a try that's for certain. But still believe changing WB in PP doesn't fix it

[sblitz]

Oops I meant to write does fix it. BTW isn't a UV filter supposed to filter out the landscape blue you are writing about ?

[A miller]

Steve - no UV filters are not intended to correct color temperature imbalance.

[sblitz]

True but they are supposed toffee theblue

[sblitz]

Filter out the blue. Try a warming filter and see what happens. Remember to post a with and without so we can all see

[A miller]

Steve - I think you'll be disappointed relying on a UV filter to eliminate blue hues in landscapes.  The UV filter really is mostly used for protection.

 

I will see what I can in terms of providing with and without comparisons.

 

You (and any others) may want to read up on this yourself as I for one find the whole topic quite illuminating.

 

For example, see post #20 here http://www.apug.org/forums/forum40/95456-kodak-ektar-vs-portas-2.html

[sblitz]

i am convinced and I have both warming and cooling filters still -- wrong size but I have step up rings for them to fit. Will give it a shot and see what happens. From my perspective this comes under the classification of fun.

[philipus]

 I don't use them - I just have a simple Photoshop fix (Selective color > blacks > add yellow ink 12% (or whatever)). But overall blue from UV in landscapes - just warm up the color balance overall in scanning or lab printing.

 

Thanks for this Andy, I'll have to try this out.

[A miller]

An example of Ektar with an old Linhof warming filter (it looks like either an 81A or 81B, there is no notation on the filter)

Technika Press 6x9

Zeiss Planar 180mm

 

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[sblitz]

and? how does this compare with how things looked at the time? right now, looks like ektar