Black and white 35mm

Ben johns

Ben johns

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What filters what be recommended for film landscapes? I've read a red filter will give the sky more contrast. Been looking at getting some graduated nd filters too but I was wondering if I scan the negatives to output tiff's will they allow me to darken the sky without filters? I've only ever shot raw
 
Yellow, orange and red filters will give increasing amounts of blue sky darkening together with the requirement for a one, two and three stop increase in exposure. A polariser will give a similar effect.

For an extreme effect, use a red filter and a polariser!


Steve.
 
Ben johns said:
What filters what be recommended for film landscapes? I've read a red filter will give the sky more contrast. Been looking at getting some graduated nd filters too but I was wondering if I scan the negatives to output tiff's will they allow me to darken the sky without filters? I've only ever shot raw
Click to expand...
Once the image is a tiff you can process it like any other tiff. You can darken the sky the same way you would with a RAW file. A caveat: if there is no detail in the sky before you darken it, there won't be after either.

The use of filters increases the contrast between the sky and the clouds. If there are no clouds, the filter will do nothing except make the sky uniformly darker. What you also need to bear in mind is that the filter will affect the whole image: blue sky will darken, so will a blue dress, blue car, blue anything.
 
You might get more complete answers if you get a passing mod to move this to the Film & Conventional subsection. My 2p's worth...

UV filters can have more significant effect with film than digital, specially if you're high up. Put it another way, for many (some? all?) films UV light can have a detrimental effect.

Polarisers do what they do with digital, effects can't be mimicked in PP.

Coloured filters are generally used with black and white film. At minimum a yellow if you've got any interesting sky. As said above, orange and red give increasingly strong effects at the expense of more and more light. Since you can't crank up the ISO mid roll (at least, not without some other compromises), it's worth thinking about. I most often use an orange filter. Red filters can make skin look damaged (or accentuate damaged skin?).

IIRC green filters can help make skin look more pleasing. I've never found a use for blue filters. There's a purplish filter that improves colour balance in fluorescent light. Not sure how useful for landscape.
 
The red filter trick works but only (or more so) on blue sky days. They'll have little to no effect on grey days. Grads are probably better on those sort of days.
 
Cheers :). Just got my first set of landscape negatives back. Definitely need filters to make the sky's better. It's produces way too much grain to darken the skies and do what I want in lightroom
 
I don't usually come here, so I've only just spotted this thread. Take a look here, and follow a link I posted in the thread as well.
 
I always take a minimum of a yellow filter with me at all times if I am using B&W film. Yellow takes roughly 1 stop of light, orange is roughly 2 and red is 2.5-3 stops. The intensity of the filter and the films sensitivity to particular wavelengths of light affect this. You can check on this by downloading the datasheet for the film. I was always taught that you should treat a yellow filter as a skylight/uv filter when using black and white film. i.e. at all times outside during daylight. It's not as true as it used to be as films are not as biased towards blue wavelengths as they used to be so you can get away without using filters more often now.

By no means a perfect example but these samples should give an approximate idea.

This is with a yellow filter (Hoya Y2)
CDFBay-Delta400-08 by Kyle, on Flickr

This is an orange filter (Hoya O)
Leander-ACROS100-02 by Kyle, on Flickr

and this is with a light red (B+W 090)
Cardiff Bay by Kyle, on Flickr
 
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