Yellow filter on M10 and raw?

[01maciel]

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When I bought my 'new' Elmar f=5cm 1:2.8, I also acquired a yellow filter. Now the use of a yellow filter is recommended for black and white shots for some special requirements. Is it possible to improve the b/w conversion when using a yellow filter for raw shots on an M10 or is this all nonsense and the whole thing can be better done in pp?

[spydrxx]

Although I don't have a digital Leica, I tried the same experiment on another digital body. The result was sort of what I expected. Since the capture was in RAW (color) the filter merely colored the whole photo yellow but did nothing to improve the contrast of skies.

[UliWer]

I never tried to use yellow filter for this purpose though it might be interestring to try.

My theory is that it would not be an advantage: the filter gives the whole picture a yellow tint, so the differences between colours on the yellow side of the color spectrum and the blue side, for which you use yellow filters for monochrome files, will be ironed out on raw files - but I may be wrong. 

[darylgo]

Once I attempted this with a red filter, and as mentioned above it colors the whole picture.  It didn't provide any advantage that I could find, perhaps yellow would be different.  

The more subtle ones such as skylight and 81a I'll use as protection filters, with these  I don't notice anything significant enough to avoid them.  

[jaapv]

Using a colour filter on a Bayer camera will degrade the image and create noise in the colour channel that gets blocked. Simulating the filter in postprocessing will give a superior result.

A Monochrom is a different story, the use of colour filters is highly recommended.

[rustyrus]

 

 

like jaap said- 100% useless on a color sensor camera- Its for use with BW film or a monochrome digital camera. 

[M11 for me]

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Assuming you convert your color DNGs in lightroom classic then in the converted b&w image you still have all your color channels that you can change. So whatever you would like to do with a color filter on your lens you better do in lightroom classic in post processing.

When in contrary you photograph with a b&w sensor then you have no color channels available in oost processing and whatever has not been done while shooting cannot be made up at a later date.

[Siriusone59]

Since you have the filter try it and see what it will do.  I know from my limited experience that a IR filter will make my raw(color) images a deep red but when converted to monochrome they look like I would expect from an IR image.  The yellow filter once converted should give you more contrast especially with sky and clouds.  We could talk all day about color channels etc. but in the end it's about what you're looking for and the best way to achieve it.  Try it out and make comparison with what lightroom will give you, that's the best way to learn and it may make the desired result easier to achieve.

[jaapv]

In the end it is about photons hitting the sensor and using a colour filter will affect that. On a digital camera the colour is achieved by letting the light through the Bayer colour filter array and assigning pixels ( which are monochrome analog devices) to report as red green or blue. If you put a colour filter in front of the Bayer colour filterettes you are effectively cutting off the output of one quarter ( with a red filter one half) of the pixels. The camera firmware will read the output of these pixels as data when in effect they produce mainly noise, degrading the quality of the final image.