Color filter on Digital camera
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You know, following text is just my observation, it is very subjective and maybe not general true at all. I am writing it here as Jeff had some question about if he can use color filter with digital camera as he used to use with analog one and black and white film.
I did the same, I often used Nikon Yellow Y44 filter when I needed just a bit more contrast and nicer tone from Fuji Neopan 400 film. I sometimes used Orange filter or Polarized filter to enhance sky contrast and get that old b&w film look.
Well nobody told me not to use them with digital so I did. The result was that it become easier for me to get black and white image with the look I liked. Yes your primary image you capture is colored by the filer and you can’t really get the clean color image anymore. But as I said that was not the goal. Goal was and is for me to get that right black and white look from it.
So at the end I take this color image extra colored by filter to my picture window pro and I mix color channels and I get b&w result. I get it much easier I do not have to stretch histogram and getting some huge boost from something I have there only little.
Here are few examples of almost the same scene I did some years ago. There is always the color original and it’s black and white version. The black and white version is done by applying exactly the same mix for all four images so you can see what effect the filter had on the image. The final b&w version would be different for each image as I would use most of the changes applied filter made.
As always your comments are very welcome!
The images would be more easily comparable if you only had B/W and not the color photos. Then you can toggle between them and see. I did not find the differences too great. Why can’t you just take your filter photo as a benchmark and then make the non-filtered one look the same in Lightroom?
Also I find your blacks are a little too deep, especially in the last one.
By the way, did you make any WB adjustments or is WB all neutral and the same for all the images?
Dirk,
to answer both of your comments: These were not scientific experiments and I only like to show to Jeff how image is modified in color when you put filter in front of it. You right that I should set the White Balance to neutral. I keep it on auto and therefore interpretation of the colors in image is effected how the WB Auto in camera feels about the white point temperature with the filter ;-)
Why I didn’t do what you propose and I apply same transformation from color to b&w to all is because I wanted to demonstrate that there is a difference in result of such a transformation and it is easier to adjust the photo to you liking if you have the correct filer on.
The resulting b&w are absolutely not the end results I would necessary like. And therefore maybe too black, could be also different screen settings between me & you. I just pickup the transformation I had by the hand, this one is BTW for Fuji Across 100.
Thanks for this entry, Richard.
I am thankful you mentioned this in your last entry… like you said, “…nobody told me not to use [filters] with digital so I did”, I would have been the opposite and NOT used filters because I thought I couldn’t… now knowing that I can, I will.
Dirk’s question of how you set the white balance was a very good point and question that I hadn’t thought of either… Again, my ignorance of the whole digital shooting format is extensive, and will just have a great deal of learning to do in a month’s time! Which I again can’t wait for to do! Also, with the digital format, my being able to, without my previous had hinderances of being extremely frugal with the shots I took, because each shot meant a frame of film, which i had to purchase, develop, etc., … Having the freedom to shoot without the financial impunity of the cost of film, etc., the remainder of the year can be summed up by the following: Educating and experimenting!
And once again – I CANNOT WAIT!!! :-)
Before now and then, I have to get my website back up so I can document and chronicle my education, experimenting, and learning…
Thanks again, Richard, I appreciate the entry, and taking of time to share it with me. All the best and happy shooting!
Jeff
One note about white balance. As I always shoot in raw I can set at processing any white point I like. And I am quite sure that it has influence how the colors will be rendered from raw file.
Jeff why you have that one month for D700? Why you need to wait? And maybe one advice for your web, I think you should just start with some available systems and focus on doing images and less on site building. If you start using wordpress.com you can than (I believe) export your data later and move it to your own wordpress site if you decide so.
Yeah, I know already that I will always shoot in RAW… well, maybe when I know I will just be experimenting, I’ll shoot high quality JPEG, but when making the real, final image experiments and images, will then shoot in RAW.
Why wait a month? It’s because that’s when I will be saved up enough in order to be able to afford it :-) I had been hoping that this Spring that Nikon would have come out with the rumored next generation upgrade to the D700, so that the price of the D700 would be reduced in price… yeah, well – no dice. But oh well, that’s okay.
As for the site… I actually want to get that up first before I have or do anything else photographically, so I can have it ready to go, so as to chronicle and document the whole new journey and learning process with me and my photography… get it established, so when I have everything, I can just move right forward without the hiccup of then getting the site all set up… I want to be able to concentrate on my photography and nothing else, and you are well aware of my frustrating, nauseating, and endless playing and tooling I did with my website when I used to have it up – I don’t want to be doing that and having it distract me from what the site will just be for and about – my photography. So, will probably just tweak and update the old website design I had before I took it down a year ago, and just slap that back up, and be good to go.