black and white photography

browsing through some of the pictures on the site ive noticed that a lot of the b/w photos have a lot of contrast to them. i have a yellow

filter and an orange filter but i still dont get the results that ive seen on other photos. it almost comes out with a very slight blue hue and

sometimes just becomes very grainy. does anyone have any suggestions or are there other kind of filters that can be used? perhaps a

darker orange filter? id like to be able to do it without the use of manipulation. thanks

Paul,

 

I am inferring that you are using a digital camera. I don't think you are going to be able to accomplish what

you want using filters in front of the lens because of the Bayer matrix in the camera. To replicate the effect

digitally, you adjust the color levels in the computer, meaning you adjust how they translate to black and white.

It varies by program, but in some you create a filter effect; in Lightroom it looks like you do it in the

grayscale settings (and I imagine there's the ability to save a batch of settings for reuse).

 

I wouldn't worry about it being manipulation. To the extent that it is, it's only the difference between analog

and digital, and the essence of it is that you created a photograph with the light confined to a specific

bandwidth around a specific frequency.

If you are using film, contrast can be controlled many points along the way. Filters is one way yes, but unless you are using top quality glass filters anything on the front of your lens that the light has to pass through can degrade the image quality somewhat, or so I've been told. I don't use filters for this reason. Contrast can also be controlled during development. The longer the development and the more agitation the film is given, the denser the highlights become. Thus to increase contrast, underexpose and overdevelop. Finally, filters at the printing stage all have an influence as well as how your particular paper responds to them. All in all, I'd suggest striving for normally exposed and developed negatives, and play with the contrast at the printing stage through the use of filters and burning/dodging.

How would the filters work if the digital camera is shot in monochrome mode?

Monochrome mode only changes the in camera processing - it doesn't affect the Bayer matrix, a hardware element,

which is the barrier.

My opinion is to always shoot in color and do the conversion in post... This will allow better control of the contrast etc....Almost all of the images in my port (in the black and white folders) where done in color then converted. Some were taken back the late 80's on film in Black and White. .... Ken

Marc, I have seen in print and been told, without any great technical explanation, that for whatever reason, there is little to no degradation of the image from the use of almost any modern filter.

 

They may have gone further, but modern filters are evidentally not as much concern as the general consensus once held.

 

I think the basis for those more recent conclusions was the various series of tests tech people made, with and without, etc.

 

I do not use as many filters as I once did when I was shooting chromes out west and was looking for deep skies, and years ago some friends were trying for deep skies locally with a degree of frustration, until one actually went west and found out the skies were darker. ;-)

 

Oddly, my friend, to whom I had given a camera and set of lenses with a lifetime warranty ;-), had dropped her lens on to an appropriately hard rock which put a two inch canyon near the middle of the outer element. I wish I had asked the company to return the element they had replaced as a $100 souvenir, but we did shoot a test roll at the shop and while not a bench test, it was surprising to not find any visual effect pre repair.

 

Still, I prefer to shoot with unscratched well coated glass.

 

Regards, John