Filters

[denmark.yuzon]

hi, i just want to ask, if red colored filter is better when shooting in black and white film.. and at night.. i need more contrast in my street shots.. all i have is a UV filter..

there are some people that recommends yellow filter and some are red.. im confused.. even googling it, and reading a few stuff over the net confuses me.. anyone used one for black and white shots? i just want to enhance my images more and give it more than just black and white pictures...

thanks..

[Prest_400]

hi, i just want to ask, if red colored filter is better when shooting in black and white film.. and at night.. i need more contrast in my street shots.. all i have is a UV filter..

there are some people that recommends yellow filter and some are red.. im confused.. even googling it, and reading a few stuff over the net confuses me.. anyone used one for black and white shots? i just want to enhance my images more and give it more than just black and white pictures...

thanks..

If you want a natural contrast, that's the use of the yellow filter. It just darkens a bit the sky.
The red filter is just for give a strong contrast, and if you have a combination of Polarizer+red the sky will be almost black.
For low light shots, I'd not recommend the red filter. It just eats 2 stops.
I believe it's hard to increase contrast in night photography, because the low light situations are always low contrast. Less light, lower contrast.

[denmark.yuzon]

i see... i just want to give my street shots a bit more character.. i guess i would go with something to protect my lens in night.. and just use the yellow or red for daylight..

[wayne naughton]

i have a UV filter on all my lenses, principally for protection. if you shoot on the street, you're gonna bash your gear around no matter how careful you are. and i use a yellow filter on all my b/w shoots, these days. i use xp2 almost exclusively and a y2 filter seems to add just the right amount of 'oomph'

IMO red filters aren't very useful for street photography, you lose too much speed. and if you're shooting at night most probably do away with filters completely.

one more thing, you can tweak things a bit if you do your own printing and processing.

good luck,

wayne

[rthomas]

The way I was taught about filtration, the most used color filters for black and white film, i.e. yellow, orange, and red, will cut UV light - one standard yellow filter, in fact, used to be referred to as a "minus blue" and this should block UV. I would assume that most better (coated) polarizing filters also filter out UV, but that may depend on the individual manufacturer. What you want to look for is the manufacturer's filter transmission chart, which shows the wavelengths of light that the filter passes, and how much transmission of each color (from 0% to 100%). No UV filter should have any appreciable effect on exposure speed. I don't use them for protection but sometimes on the water or at higher elevations they actually do help cut the blue in color pictures a little, especially the 1a skylight type. Generally I don't stack filters unless I need both polarization and a particular contrast or warming filter. This is why some companies make "warm polar" and "warm soft" filters - they are combining the effects of two different filters in one so you don't have to stack them (and to sell more filters, of course).