BLACK & WHITE FILTERS
“A World Of Gray Tones”
1. Color filters are useful in black & white photography to give a truer rendition of the gray tones.
2. There are approximately 200 shades of gray that your eye can recognize.
3. B&W filters help maintain the proper brightness relationship between colors.
4. There are three categories of B&W filters: correction, contrast, and haze.
5. Lighter colored filters are generally used as correction filters in B&W.
6. Yellow 8 is the most popular correction filter, because of the contrast it adds to landscapes and cloudy skies.
7. Other popular contrast filters: deep yellow 15, orange 21, red 25, blue 47, green 58.
8. Haze filters minimize haze to give clearer images of distant scenes. If you’d rather keep the haze: yellow 8, to reduce haze: deep yellow 15 or red 25, and to increase haze: 47 blue.
9. Three most useful B&W filters: yellow 8, red 25, green 1 (11)
10.To lighten an object, choose a filter the same color as the object.
11.To darken an object, choose a filter color that absorbs the color of the object.
12.You cannot darken an overcast sky with a contrast filter. Use a Color-Grad® filter instead.
13.The same filters that darken blue skies also lighten skin tones.
14.A polarizer filter can be used with B&W film to achieve the same polarizer effect obtained on color film. – reduces reflections and glare / deepens sky tonality while creating contrast to white clouds.
| SHOOTING SITUATION |
SUGGESTED FILTER |
| Aerial |
Deep yellow 15
|
| Architecture |
Red 23A
|
|
Clouds / Sky
Natural looking sky
Dark Sky
Cloud elimination
|
Yellow 8
Red 25A
Blue 47
|
| Foliage |
Yellow 8 |
Haze
Preserve haze
Reduce haze
Increase haze
|
Yellow 8
Red 25A
Blue 47
|
| Infrared |
Red 25A
|
| Landscapes |
Yellow 8
Green 1
|
| Marine |
Deep yellow 15
|
| Portraits |
Green 1
|
| Sand / Snow |
Deep yellow 15
|
| Sunsets |
Red 25A |
|