B + W 40, Yellow/Orange 16 (shadow details)

Hello -

 

I'm a long time B&W film shooter and wanted to buy a #15 filter but most manufacturers (Heliopan and B+W) are backordered for months. I was going to settle on a #16 instead. Two questions:

 

1. Is the difference between #15 (deep yellow) and #16 (yellow orange) quite dramatic?

 

2. Does the #16 filter "crush" the shadow details or are you still seeing enough to maintain reasonable details in the composition?

 

Note that these filters will be used on medium format Mamiya cameras.

 

Thanks!

Hello -

 

I'm a long time B&W film shooter and wanted to buy a #15 filter but most manufacturers (Heliopan and B+W) are backordered for months. I was going to settle on a #16 instead. Two questions:

 

1. Is the difference between #15 (deep yellow) and #16 (yellow orange) quite dramatic?

 

2. Does the #16 filter "crush" the shadow details or are you still seeing enough to maintain reasonable details in the composition?

 

Note that these filters will be used on medium format Mamiya cameras.

 

Thanks!

I cannot give you a definitive answer. I am not a landscape photographer (not saying you are) and i have not done any real tests with those filters. I HAVE used both, and my opinion would be that no..... your specific concerns are not going to be realized with one of those over the other.

I would think they will have similar shadow effect.

Not much help, but as no other answers were posted, i thought i would just offer my opinion.

Maybe shoot an email to B&W... Hoya... or any of the major filter makers.?

Goo Luck

A #15 cuts off at 510nm and the #16 cuts off at 520nm. Filters like this darken shadows because shadows are mostly lit by diffuse skylight, which is generally blue. Since both of the block pretty much all blue, I'd expect to see little difference (if any) in how they affect shadows.

I frequently use a Wratten G filter on my scenic subjects. I believe this filter is one step up from the #16 you reference. How various filters change the "standard" exposure on any B & W film material is dependent on what you do both in the camera & in development of the film. Since the late 1960's I have been a Zone System worker and almost 99% of my negatives & prints come out as planned at the moment of exposure.

Get a G filter, give it + 1.5 f stop of compensation and start a series of tests. 1st frame, no filter. Frame #2 use the G. If you feel brave put a Red 25A on the camera. I use + 2.5 f stop for the 25A. Develop your film to your "normal" time in a chemistry you have worked with. Print or scan your neg's and take a serious look at what you have. . . You will start to see the difference between each filter and what you "wanted" to record.

I have never seen a G or 25A "smash" detail if one exposes the film properly. The example I put here is a 6x6 negative from a vintage Agfa Isolette 3 (Apotar 85mm), 100asa material using the G filter. Development was my "Normal" in Pyrocat HD. Scanned on an Epson V600. Compressing the file for entry here results in some what muddy values, but in the original file, enlarged to 16x16, one can still see detail in the trees and boat hulls in shadow.

Aloha, Bill

One can be working with 35mm and get some outstanding exposures with the G filter on storm clouds. Here the filter has separated the values in the distant thunder cells. No manipulation other than contrast and darkness is used on this scene. Fed-3 / Jupiter-8, UFX100, Pyrocat HD & V600 scan. Aloha, Bill

Thanks everyone. I actually preferred the filters (B+W #16). Will report back but was expecting that there would be little difference between the two.

Most of my B&W shooting is in the mountain and desert country in the southwestern USA (California, Nevada, Arizona) with occasional road trips across the border into Baja California (Mexico). Except for early morning and late evening, we're talking mainly sunny days with typically low contrast (2-3 stops) and lots of glare from sand, salt flats and snow in the winter. In fact, "Sunny F22" is more of the rule than the exception during the summer. A yellow filter (typically a Nikon Y48) is my standard lens protection for my 35 mm primes and the medium format TLRs, which gives the images some snap and helps differentiate any clouds from the sky. However, I find that an orange filter (Nikon O56) works best to compensate for the lower contrast of my portrait and telephoto zooms, in particular the old 1980's vintage Kiron 28-70 I use when I'm hiking around and don't care to carry one of my multiple camera bags. The Kiron is a cheap, durable lens (all metal assembly) with decent sharpness, but always had a bit of a weird cyan cast when I would shoot chromes. Now i just use it for B&W, keep the orange filter on along with a cheap metal wide-angle lens hood to keep it from getting too banged up should I slip on the trail, and it does fine with me.