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M Monochrom & Filters


Bill W

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The good thing about a polarising filter is that it doesn’t care about colour – you can use it to darken the blue sky without affecting anything else that happens to be blue or green, like an orange filter would. It has its uses in black and white photography – roughly the same uses it has in colour photography.

 

I know yours was an old post in this resurrected thread but,

Michael I must take issue with you on this point - it's a bit more complex.

 

I tried using a PL filter on the Monochrom for just this purpose - to see if I could increase luminance contrast simply by removing scattered light.  In this regard the sky darkened as expected but it did affect other tonal values (especially of grass, soil, foliage, and the branches of the tree).

 

I would greatly appreciate some thoughts on this.

 

Ross Highway, Northern Territory, Australia

Monochrom   2.0/28 Summicron ASPH 

No PL filter

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Edited by MarkP
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Ross Highway, Northern Territory, Australia


Monochrom   2.0/28 Summicron ASPH 


PL filter

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I tried using a PL filter on the Monochrom for just this purpose - to see if I could increase luminance contrast simply by removing scattered light.  In this regard the sky darkened as expected but it did affect other tonal values (especially of grass, soil, foliage, and the branches of the tree).

Yep, just as it does if you use it for colour photography.

 

There are two effects at play here, one due to the polarising filter, the other being just a side-effect.

 

Many kinds of foliage happen to be quite shiny, so they reflect the blue sky. If you suppress those reflections with a PL filter they assume a warmer and more saturated green hue which also shows in black and white.

 

Furthermore, once you darken the bright blue sky with a PL filter, you have to expose slightly longer to compensate, thus brightening everything that wasn’t darkened by the filter, foliage being one example.

 

Having said that, it is still true that a polarising filter doesn’t care about colour; it is light polarised in a certain way that gets suppressed, not light of a specific colour.

Edited by mjh
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Yep, just as it does if you use it for colour photography.

 

There are two effects at play here, one due to the polarising filter, the other being just a side-effect.

 

Many kinds of foliage happen to be quite shiny, so they reflect the blue sky. If you suppress those reflections with a PL filter they assume a warmer and more saturated green hue which also shows in black and white.

 

Furthermore, once you darken the bright blue sky with a PL filter, you have to expose slightly longer to compensate, thus brightening everything that wasn’t darkened by the filter, foliage being one example.

 

Having said that, it is still true that a polarising filter doesn’t care about colour; it is light polarised in a certain way that gets suppressed, not light of a specific colour.

 

Thanks for explaining that Michael. Makes perfect sense.

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I found it interesting on the Leica website where they discuss the use of the new filters on the 246 that they chose the identical frame to illustrate creative control with lens filters. The horse would have moved in the time it took to apply the filter. So, either the photo of the horse was shot with the 246 and post processed or it was shot with a color camera. If taken with the 246 it appears that digital filtration in post processing mimics lens filters with monochrom files quite well.

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So you will have to use optical filters if you want the effect they produce.

And even then, Jennifer should be aware, one cannot mimic through the use of a single optical filter the effect of simultaneous color channel (or local color) adjustments that digital PP allows.  People who don't come from a film background don't understand how flexible and convenient digital has made things….although of course there are other trade-offs.  

 

It's a trade-off I'll certainly have to consider as I eventually compare my M240 b/w conversions to MM246 results.

 

Jeff

Edited by Jeff S
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Jeff

B&W conversions with the M240 I find superb. But since selling my M9M I will be "back in the saddle" once I get the new M246. It will again give me freedom I experienced while using the M9M. Hard to explain, but it is special, especially when seeing the results printed out.

Edited by algrove
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Is it worth waiting for the Leica coloured filters to be available or just go with B+W?

They are probably identical glass. In general Leica has  had their filters made from a midrange Schott (AKA B&W) glass, except for their UV/IR filters, that are said to be made by Marumi.

If you want nano-coated filters you must go with B&W. Heliopan is worth looking at as well.

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I use the B+W and have had great results with 020M, 040M 090M & 091M. I prefer a contrasty look so I most often tend to go for the Orange 040M and 901M red where big clouds persist. Heliopan has a real dark reed too and a green that I have in 46mm. Do not have heliopan 39mm, but have all the above B+W in 39 as well as 46.

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Sorry to resurrect this old thread but I'm looking for some advice on colour filters.

 

Accompanying the launch of the Monochrom M246, Leica announced that they where to offer three colour filters (yellow, orange and green). Up to now I've only ever made use of coloured filters in PP after conversion to black and white in Lightroom, Photoshop or Sliver Efex Pro. With the imminent arrival of my shiny new MM II :)  is it worth buying coloured filters to go with or can I achieve the same results by introducing a colour filter in PP as I've done up to now?

 

One thing to remember is that an M(240) image, adjusted using the colour channels in processing, is effectively downgrading the image.  The colour filter array groups 4 pixels, 2 green, one red and one blue (grouped together to form a single colour pixel in demosaicing).  When you apply a filter in post processing, you are reducing the value of one of those channels.

 

With the Monochrom, you are using all 4 pixels, hence the significant increase in resolution.  When you apply an optical colour filter, you still get all four pixels of equal value - it is the filter which changes the relative values of the colour channels before the image hits the sensor.  

 

I used to use a polarising filter a lot with my Hasselblad as I really liked the impact it had on B&W images.  That camera, however, provides an image though the lens, which makes the polarising adjustment relatively easy and precise.  I haven't tried a polarising filter on an M camera yet, as I can't see how you would set it ...

Edited by IkarusJohn
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Or the Leica swing-out filter which rotates 180 degrees to let you preview, or  two filters with index markings, one in the hand, one on the lens, or a larger filter on a slotted step-up ring.

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Guest NEIL-D-WILLIAMS

Sorry to resurrect this old thread but I'm looking for some advice on colour filters.

 

Accompanying the launch of the Monochrom M246, Leica announced that they where to offer three colour filters (yellow, orange and green). Up to now I've only ever made use of coloured filters in PP after conversion to black and white in Lightroom, Photoshop or Sliver Efex Pro. With the imminent arrival of my shiny new MM II :)  is it worth buying coloured filters to go with or can I achieve the same results by introducing a colour filter in PP as I've done up to now?

The color filters in lightroom don't work on Monochrom files................just found that out this week

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Guest NEIL-D-WILLIAMS

Just checking..............

Those of you that have been following my previous threads about this and that with the MM, you will know that I have ordered a bunch of B+W Yellow/Orange filters in various sizes. I hear that the Yellow/Orange filter will produce about -1 stop when attached to the MM. In previous threads I learnt that I need to not shoot ETTR so dial in say -1 to -1.5.................So my question is if the filter gives me say -1 and I want -1.5 then dial in -.0.5 in camera, is that correct?

At the end of the day I will be checking the histogram and aiming for the; dare I say it "the perfect exposure" without clipping highlights

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