photographing air???

[david_clark4]

Hi All, what are your techniques for getting tone in the sky of a

black and white print? What are my options here? Yellow filter?

Polarizer? With the yellow the shadows go black and I lose one stop.

With Polarizer I lose two full stops. What are my options for getting

clouds in my landscapes and for darkening the sky? Thanks, David

[Troll]

David, watch out that you don't overdo it, and make everything look like all those ghastly black sky pictures from the forties by St. Ansel.

[art_haykin]

I have burned in MANY a sky in both B&W and color printing.

[gauthier]

I think you'll have to get used to the stop loss. Your choices: PL (2 stops) or yellow (1 stop), orange (2 stops) or red (3 stops) filters, depending on the effect you want. Infrared film also gives stricking dar skies, but choice is limited in LF film and you'll need at least a red filter or some exotic IR one (in the 87 series).

[ralph_barker]

Another option is a graduated neutral-density filter, available in several maximum densities. These are rectangular filters that fade from the stated maximum density to clear at about the mid point, and must be positioned appropriately based on the composition on the ground glass.

 

As long as you are dealing with a fairly uninterupted horizon, they are quite handy.

[dan_smith]

What film are you using? Some do better at rendering sky than others. Then there is the aerial haze, dust & dirt as well as the smog level you photograph through. Then there is the viewing angle you choose as well as the time of day.

Add to that the way you expose & develop the film of choice & you have a lot of ways to get some control over the look of your skies even before you start on filters.

[david_goldfarb]

And in addition to all the methods mentioned, you can try one of those color grads that look terribly cheesy with color film, but not so bad with B&W. Try any of the same colors as conventional B&W filters (Y, O, R) or Tobacco, which works kind of like orange. The idea is that you increase contrast in the sky and bring the exposure closer to the land, but you don't change the tonality of the land, as you would with a regular black and white filter.

[ellis_vener_photography]

Actually Bill, those "black sky" prints dte from the mid to late 1960s and 1970s.

the prints from earlier in his life have more tonality.<P>have you tried using a

light yellow filter instead of a stronger one. You need a filter in the yellow/

orange/red range to darken the blue ofthe sky and create contrast ing

background to make the white / gray clouds stand out against it. I would also

look at how you are exposing your negatives.

[eugene_singer]

David, you will find a detailed answer to your inquiry in "The Negative". by Ansel Adams. A "must read" for anybody doing B&W photography. The sky is blue. Modern B&W films are being manufactured with increased blue sensitivity, making the sky appear lighter on a B&W print. Burning in the sky while printing will make the sky appear to be a darker grey tone. A yellow, orange, or red filter will filter out the blue color and will also make the sky appear darker on the print. Clouds are white, so darkening the blue sky makes the clouds stand out by increasing the contrast between the blue sky and the white clouds. A yellow, orange, or red filter will absorb some of the light passing through it. The darker the filter, the greater the effect, and the more light it will absorb. You will need to increase your exposure to make up for the light loss from the filter by opening the iris or slowing the shutter speed. A polaroid filter will darken the sky with color film, but it does not increase the contrast between the blue sky and the clouds with B&W film. Whenever the sky is included in the picture, it's much simpler to use a filter to balance the tones, due to the overwhelming amount of direct, and reflected, blue light. Photo libraries are filled with information about filtering for B&W photography.

[richard_rankin2]

If the above poster (E. Singer) means polarizing filter where he says polaroid filter, then I think he is incorrect about polarizing have no affect on B&W. Both polarizing filters and neutral density filters yield similar results on both b&w and colour.

 

A quote from Kodak:

 

"... there are two filters that yield similar results in both black and white and color pictures. They are the polarizing filter and the neutral density filter. Since they don't affect the color of the light, their functions in black and white photos are the same as in color photos.... they're among the least used and least understood of all filters...." From Kodak's Workshop Series on Using Filters.

 

Cheers, Richard

[tim_delorto]

David,

The filter you use for skys in B/W really depends on the color of your sky, specifically, just how blue it is. A summer sky in Arizona is way bluer than a winter sky (baby blue) where I live in the Northwest. Here, in the winter, even a red filter doesn't darken the sky substantially, and you could never get black skys even if you wanted. I would stay away from polarizers in B/W because they will knock off all your highlights and turn everything grey. You can get away with that in color because you have all that bold color to keep your interest. In B/W, its the tonalities and highlights that look so great, and a polarizer destroys all that. But experiment with it a little yourself and keep good notes. Hope all this helps.

[ken_lee11]

Perhaps I missed it, but nobody has mentioned a green filter. A green filter will cut out the extreme ends of the spectrum, red and blue.

 

Unlike red, orange, and yellow filters, green filters will not darken the appearence of foliage. In fact, they will lighten it, making it possible to darken the sky even further without getting the ghostly appearance that we see when too red a filter has been used.

 

Using Photoshop with scanned negatives or slides, there are countless other techniques by which you can get a nice looking sky.

 

One thing to keep in mind about Polarizers, is that they are most effective when shooting at right angles to the sun.

 

Finally, choosing your subject matter wisely is half the battle. You can;t get water from a stone, as they say.

[david_brown1]

I know to many it may sound like heresy, but you might try using a chromogenic film like T400CN. I have no personal experience with these films, but if they live up to their claims, they might solve your problem.

[jeffrey_scott]

If you are going to use a polarizer avoid using it with wide angle lenses as the sky will be uneven due to the way polarizers work. As you change direction relative to the sun the effect will be weaker or stronger, so the wider the field of view the greater variation in the polarizer's effect on the sky.

[eugene_singer]

Richard Rankin, excuse my senior moment. I meant POLARIZING filter, not polaroid filter. I did NOT state that the polarizing filter has NO EFFECT on black and white film. I stated that it does not act as a contrast increasing filter with B&W film, the way it does with color film. It acts as a neutral density filter with B&W film. It is also effective for removing un-wanted reflections from glass surfaces.I have used my polarizer when photographing down into river or lake water to remove the reflection from the surface.

[scott walton]

Agreeing with Ken Lee, I use a B+W yellow/green filter awhole lot more because of it's great tones that it renders...

[steve_feldman2]

Another option, not yet mentioned, is by double exposing a cloud/sky neg in the darkroom. When I have a blah white sky scenic, I expose in the enlarger a neg I keep special for the purpose. Expose the forground of the scenic and dodge back the sky area. Then expose the sky/cloud neg into the blah area, usually the top portion, and completely dodge the forground. Bingo! Two negs, one print. If you're very careful it's undetectable. (Well almost).