Book On Filters??

Greetings

 

Does anyone know of a book or books, in print or out-of-print, that completely

describes & explains the entire Kodak Wratten black & white filter

classification system??..A book that explains filter factors & f-stop

compensation factors??..

 

I'm familiar with the following filter numbers & colors from the Formatt Filters

website..

 

Lt. Yellow #3, Lt. Yellow #6, Yellow #8, Deep Yellow #9, Yellow-Green #11,

Yellow #12, Yellow-Green #13, Yellow #15, Yellow-Orange #16, Orange #21,

Orange-Red #23, Lt. Red #25, Dk. Red #29, Lt. Blue #38, Dk. Blue #47, Lt. Green

#56, Green #58, Deep Green #61

 

As I intend to rekindle my interest in black & white film photography, I'd like

to gain a better understanding of the traditional Kodak Wratten filters..Their

place in history, how & why they were used in the past, & their applications in

the present on modern black & white films..

 

In the past I occasionally used the Yellow K2, the Orange O2, & the Red (?)

filters..I'd be especially interested in what filters, if any, current

photographers shooting black & white film are using..

 

Thanks, Bruce

<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/KODAK-Photographic-Filters-Handbook/dp/0879856580">Kodak Photographic Filters Handbook</A> has technical data including absorbance spectra.

 

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Alternatively, <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/Kodak-Filters-Scientific-Technical-Publication/dp/0879852828/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204775323&sr=1-1">Kodak Filters for Scientific ad Technical Uses</A> (Kodak publication B-3) which may be out of print, but you can find it easily second-hand.

 

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If you don't need great detail, go to the Kodak website-- <A HREF="http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/wratten1.jhtml?id=0.1.4.16&lc=en">this page</A> or <A HREF="http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/b3akic/b3akic.jhtml">this page</A>.

Wratten filters were made by the Wratten & Wainright company, and meant to correct for flaws in the spectral sensitivity of their main product: dye-sensitized panchromatic photographic plates.<br>The name Wratten was made famous by George Eastman.<br><br>Eastman was in desperate need of a scientist. He was embarrased by something he was asked when visiting the huge research lab of Bayer, a huge european chemical company: they told him they had 700 people working in their lab, and asked him how many people were working in his research lab. There were as good as none. He did not have a real research lab.<br>Like his fellow tycoon Edison, George Eastman's idea of research was sending out scouts all over the world to discover, and then beg, borrow or steal inventions other people made. If necessary, he bought some too. But though succesfull his scout - Joseph Thacher Clarke - was, a man who thought that "The ideal large corporation is the one that makes the best use of the brains within it", as George Eastman himself said, could no longer postpone hiring real brains. (that is: he had already put it off for over 30 years).<br>He found a true genius in C.K.E. Mees. Mees worked for, in fact was made a partner in, the british Wratten and Wainright Company. Their panchromatic plates were still too sensitive for blue light, and Mees suggested they produce a yellow filter to correct that. So Wratten & Wainright started producing three different yellow (minus blue) filters, plus a green darkroom safelight filter.<br>Mees first met Eastman when he visited the Kodak factory in 1909. Not that Eastman recognized the genius of the man he bored with his conversation about, as Mees later recalled, "American football, which was something in which i had no interest whatever." It was not until 1912 that Eastman invited Mees to come work for him and organize a research lab for Kodak.<br>Mees did want to do so all right, but he told Eastman he could not leave mr Wratten, because he would not have been able to carry on without Mees' help, so he only could accept the offer if Eastman would buy the Wratten & Wainright Company, and retire mr. Wratten. And so Eastmandid: he paid $ 100,000 (in 1912!), moved the entire factory to Rochester, and offered all W&W employees positions with Kodak.<br>Eastman was used to buying his research anyway, so... ;-)<br>The Wratten name was continued by Kodak, and many more filters were produced, almost all of them to correct the spectral response of photographic materials.<br><br>So much for history. There are basically three filters used in B&W photography - yellow, orange and red - because they are most useful. They all do the same, to a different degree.<br>Nothing has changed in that since you last used them yourself. Not a lot has changed since they were used with the first panchromatic plates a century ago.<br>;-)

You might also learn something from this site: http://www.schneideroptics.com/info/stillphotography.htm