filters for Hasselblad

[paul_difford]

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I recently purchased a Hasselblad 501cm. All is going well, but now I am thinking about buying filters (I am using the 80mm CF and a 150mm CF lenses). I have a multi-part question regarding this. In this day and age with Photoshop CS5, is it still worth getting filters (in other words is it possible to render something that looks just as good in PS)? If so I was thinking of a set of 4 filters, red, yellow and green for B/w and polaroid for colour. Is it possible to get a set of filters or not? </p>

<p>Cheers</p>

<p>Paul </p>

[mark_farrell]

<p>If you shoot B&W film you can't do anything in Photoshop to modify what would have been the original color content of a scene, so the filters that you mention would be needed. If you shoot color film, then a reasonable assimilation of B&W filters could be applied with software.<br>

For my Hasselblad lenses I purchased an adapter so I can use regular threaded filters on the Hasselblad bayonet mount. Used threaded filters used for B&W film can be found fairly easily and cheap on ebay and some retailers. If you buy used, look for a good brand name rather than a cheap no name filter.</p>

 

[paul_difford]

<p>Hi Mark, thanks for the explanation. </p>

[tim_ludwig2]

<p>Paul,</p>

<p>You mention the Polarizer only for color, but it can be a tremendous addition in black and white as well. Not only to remove glare from things like water, but combined with a yellow or red filter, it will increase the drama in skies to a point that you won't believe. For example, a red filter alone darkens blue so a blue sky will become a very deep gray. Combine that with a polarizer to remove the glare factor from the moisture haze that is in most skies, and the sky will go almost a total black. Imagine that contrasted against cumulous clouds and snowy mountain peaks or white beaches. Nothing in photoshop that I am aware of, can begin to create this kind of tonal separation. This is not jsut a function of contrast. It is actually creating a separating new tonal ranges on the film.</p>

[leicaglow]

<p>Paul, I've used PhotoShop from the original version, and know my way around it pretty well. But I still like using filters out in the field because of the forethought required to make a B&W image work, including the zone system and other factors. This applies to my personal B&W work.</p>

<p>For commercial work, I use another methodology: If you wanted to apply filtration in PhotoShop, then I would work with as realistic version as you can capture. That would be a really well exposed color image (my preference would be a transparency film, depending on the image). Then as you apply curves and filtration in PhotoShop, it will work on the original colors, not just a range of grays. This is how I handle my commercial work, when I'm not renting a MF digital camera, and instead shooting film.</p>

[paul_difford]

<p>Thanks guys, you have given me much food for thought. </p>

[JDMvW]

<p>The most important filter effect that is really "un-Photoshopable" is polarizing - as said, not just for darkening sky (probably a graduated ND filter will do that more evenly anyhow) but for eliminating certain kinds of reflections, thereby saturating colors.<br /> As Mark points out, doing B&W with a digital color image is a very powerful way to play with color and filtering that, in MHO, beats using filters on B&W film.</p>

[rashed_s]

I use filters on the lens, the B60 filters found with b&h used and in good prices, the filters on the

lens give the real effect you need than photoshop, a polarizer for me is a must shooting landscape,

specially and so the ND filter also, for the B/W it is also helpful to use on the lens, such as red,

yellow filters.

 

The polarizer will serve two purpose, one, it will emphasize he blue colors of the sky depending on the sun angel and the second it will reduce reflections.

 

Marumi makes B60 ND8 filters which will work on your lenses they can be found on ebay.

[paul_difford]

<p>So, if I understand you correctly JDM, if I buy a polarising filter and a graduated ND filter for colour photography. Then try get the best possible results in colour, I can then use these images as a template in CS5 and convert into B & W, thus cutting out B & W film altogether? </p>

[mark_farrell]

<p>Yes, shooting with colour film will give you the flexibility of having colour images or converting to B&W in CS5. I presently do this B&W conversion with some of my digital images shot with my DSLR.</p>

 

[kparratt]

<p>B&W film .. silver halides .. response to light .. the chemistry .. is all about the medium for me. The use of filters for selecting light that speaks to the silver is part of the business of getting it right. The filters are crutial players in that meeting of light and silver. With the vision in mind, I call the shots and the lens delivers. The filters selected become a component of the lens. Then for the next phase of creation, it's between the film, the chemistry and again me.<br /> Were I to surrender to digital substitutes for my artwork, I'm sure my immune system would collapse.<br /> I may as well give up painting and drawing, and engraving copper plates too, and jump on the slick -ass computer art bandwagon. How impoverished life would be then.<br /> Okay, yeah .. I have digital camera for convenient communications and making notes, and Photoshop is great for resurrecting old and damaged negatives, excellent in fact. But that's where it ends for me. My B&W photography otherwise is a pixel free zone.. <br /> <br /> Paul, my sincere advice is to get a few basic filters to start with, and deepen your knowledge of how film responds to light. Use Photoshop as a last resort to tweak a result if you must, but not to deny yourself the experience of creating at the moment of exposure. ... >>> "Click" .. a very important moment.<br /> <br /> What I did, before and after having read from cover to cover Ansel Adams' book "The Negative", was to run several of series of images, choosing a variety subjects, but each one without filter, then with filters I had, each in turn, UV, yellows, orange, reds etc. I made notes, came back, processed film and made prints, and more notes. I'm still experimenting and making notes. ...</p>

[rashed_s]

I think converting colors images to B/W using any digital media will not always work, this will

depend on the color density of an image, shooting B/W film is much more practical and the result

are better, the films comes much less dense and more dynamic range.

[JDMvW]

<p>Mark has answered the question; but, yes, conversion to B&W in PS gives you many more options than you could get if you packed a collection of a hundred optical filters with you.</p>

<p>If the <em>image</em>, rather than the <em>procedure</em>, is what you are after, this is the way to combine the look of film with the power of digital post-processing.</p>

<p>I can't see how the problem Rashed brings up is any different for actual B&W film and filters than it is for shooting negative or slide color film.</p>

[ondebanks]

<p>There is a big difference between filtering away a set of wavelengths before they reach the film/sensor, and letting them reach the film/sensor but then weighting down that channel in post-processing.</p>

<p>Say you want to use a yellow filter, or produce the look of a yellow-filtered shot. The real optical filter will cut wavelengths shorter than about 470nm, and pass everything longer than that at close to 100%. The unfiltered shot will record everything from around 390nm to around 510 nm in the blue channel (it actually extends to around 570 nm, but the green channel is stronger above 510 nm so that's a convenient cutoff point), and in post-processing you will weight this blue channel down to about 50% to give that yellow (minus-blue) effect.</p>

<p>The 1st case eliminates light from 390nm - 470nm. The 2nd case passes this light, at 50%.<br>

The 1st case passes light from 470nm - 510 nm at near 100%. The 2nd case passes this light, at 50%.</p>

<p>Are they the same? Nope. The real filter, for example, cuts bluish atmospheric haze completely; the software version can only reduce it by half. The software version changes the colour of everything in the scene with emission/reflectance between 470nm - 510 nm; the real filter does not mess with these colours/tones. And so on.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Ray, I wonder how "big" the difference is <em>in effect</em>. What you end up with is still a B&W with darker sky and more obvious clouds.<br>

In post-processing you can vary the effect continuously - try that with a filter.</p>

<p>I still use filters when I shoot with B&W film, but the alternative of shooting color and filtering afterwards is very attractive for its flexibility and power.</p>

[leicaglow]

<p>Ray, That is a very good point; one that I neglected to mention.</p>

[paul_difford]

<p>'The Negative' was recommended to me to read. I have a question regarding the Zone System, because we are now using roll film and also the latitude of modern film is there a point to this system's use now?</p>

[leicaglow]

<p>Paul, Absolutely. I have separate backs labeled N-1 and N+1 for B&W applications. The latitude of B&W films has not changed considerably. I think Adams may have used this method for his MF shooting as well.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

He has (used the ZS for MF).