B/W film use - green yellow filter or just the yellow filter?

rayonline_nz · Dec 12, 2016

Any views on this? I started reading more and they say the yellow green is nice for portraits, and similar to a medium yellow with a bit darker reds or landscapes. So my question such is, should I go for a yellow green instead of the yellow? Occasional portraits, mostly cityscapes and landscapes and urban stuff as I go for a wander walk.

Cheers.

bernard_L · Dec 12, 2016

rayonline_nz said:
mostly cityscapes and landscapes and urban stuff as I go for a wander walk

If just one filter: medium yellow. Yellow green is nice for... greenery.

rayonline_nz · Dec 12, 2016

I might pick up a orange also.

macfred · Dec 12, 2016

On my Super Ikonta 531/16 I use three original Zeiss Ikon filters.
Yellow (x2) as a kind of standard filter for every day use; Yellow/Green (2x) for some portraits
(not for every skin type) and -just like Bernhard said- for greenery/landscapes.
The Orange filter (5x) is very special and I use it rarely.
On my FUJI GW670iii I use a Lite Yellow (1.5x) as a standard filter and -rarely- an Orange filter (5x).

Ko.Fe. · Dec 12, 2016

I have very orange, medium yellow and deep green, which is yellow-green officially.
I've done some urban walk will all three. Orange was nothing special, if not worst. Yellow was giving nice hint of the extra contrast and drawing of small details with not so contrasty lenses.
And yellow-green worked nice on people in the urban environment. I took series of shots at "naked bike Toronto". Butt I'm not going to show it here .

RalphLambrecht · Dec 12, 2016

rayonline_nz said:
Any views on this? I started reading more and they say the yellow green is nice for portraits, and similar to a medium yellow with a bit darker reds or landscapes. So my question such is, should I go for a yellow green instead of the yellow? Occasional portraits, mostly cityscapes and landscapes and urban stuff as I go for a wander walk.

Cheers.

a light yellow #8 Wratten provides the most realistic representation in B&W

MattKing · Dec 12, 2016

RalphLambrecht said:
a light yellow #8 Wratten provides the most realistic representation in B&W

This varies a bit with the film. T-max 400, as an example has a bit less blue sensitivity so many people don't use a yellow filter with it when they will use a yellow filter with other films.

Helios 1984 · Dec 12, 2016

I bought a Pentax Yellow-Green, not so long ago, I'll have to finish my roll to compare.

DREW WILEY · Dec 12, 2016

A pale yellow-green filter brings typical panchromatic film into similar spectral response as the human eye, since pan film is slightly depressed in
the green. I always have one of these on hand when doing black and white outdoor portraiture, though it is also nice when you need just a tweak of contrast in landscape subjects too, or a more natural effect. Typically needs just one stop of exposure compensation, versus two or three for medium
or dark green, which can render a more Ortho look on pan film.

Andrew O'Neill · Dec 12, 2016

The Wratten #11 is one of my favourite filters. I find it useful in separating red tones.

Sirius Glass · Dec 12, 2016

I use light yellow, medium yellow, orange, red and green, but I do not have yellow-green filters for any of the many cameras and formats. So I do not use yellow-green filters by default.

rayonline_nz · Dec 12, 2016

Do you guys use these filters with grad filters? Round or square filters?
The yellow is a standard all round filter. Are there any time when you won't use a filter? Apart from journalism style, night time perhaps?

Sirius Glass · Dec 12, 2016

rayonline_nz said:
Do you guys use these filters with grad filters?

I do not use grad filters.

rayonline_nz said:
Round or square filters?

I use screw-in filters, bayonet filters and series filter with slip-on adapters depending on the camera and lens.

rayonline_nz said:
The yellow is a standard all round filter. Are there any time when you won't use a filter? Apart from journalism style, night time perhaps?

I use Skylight or UV filters all the time, and switch to the yellow, orange, ... filter when using those filters will help the composition. That said, when I am using the 35mm camera that is dedicated to black & white film only, I use either a yellow or orange filter much of the time.

flavio81 · Dec 12, 2016

Green for making male skin look nice/healthy in portraits.

Yellow for extra contrast. Haven't tried it in portraits.

Red for extreme contrast in landscape and eerie whitening in portraits.

Andrew O'Neill · Dec 12, 2016

I have a few screw in filters but most are Wratten gels. I've never owned a graduated filter.

Leigh B · Dec 12, 2016

YELLOW is RED + GREEN in additive chroma terms.

So what advantage is gained using a GREEN + RED + GREEN filter?

- Leigh

Patrick Robert James · Dec 13, 2016

I pretty much shoot everything through a yellow/green or a red these days. Night shots are filterless for obvious reasons, at least for black and white.

DREW WILEY · Dec 13, 2016

Leigh - Yellow is subtractive = minus blue. So it attentuates and darkens a certain amount of blue, but lightens green foliage which reflects both
green and red light. Of course, we don't see the red or yellow of leaves etc until autumn when the chlorophyll is gone; but it's there all along. We
rarely use true red, green, or blue color separation filters in general photography becuase they're so dense (29 red, 58 green, and 47B blue); so other a certain amount of opposite hues do get through the lesser filters, including all yellow filters. But an actual 29 red would block all green and blue
light and allow only red through. A 58 green would block all red and blue. And likewise, if you looked at anything red or green through a 47B filter,
it would look completely black, and only blue itself would pass.

DREW WILEY · Dec 13, 2016

Grad filters are a completely different subject. I've never used them on any kind of camera. In fact, I've never seen a picture done with them that
didn't look fishy to me.

benjiboy · Dec 13, 2016

I always understood that although most modern monochrome films are called panchromatic ( sensitive to all colours of light) they are still a little over sensitive to blue light and to get the optimum tonal correction you use a yellow/green filter.

Leigh B · Dec 13, 2016

DREW WILEY said:
Leigh - Yellow is subtractive = minus blue. So it attentuates and darkens a certain amount of blue, but lightens green foliage which reflects both
green and red light. Of course, we don't see the red or yellow of leaves etc until autumn when the chlorophyll is gone; but it's there all along. We
rarely use true red, green, or blue color separation filters in general photography becuase they're so dense (29 red, 58 green, and 47B blue); so other a certain amount of opposite hues do get through the lesser filters, including all yellow filters. But an actual 29 red would block all green and blue
light and allow only red through. A 58 green would block all red and blue. And likewise, if you looked at anything red or green through a 47B filter,
it would look completely black, and only blue itself would pass.

Hi Drew,

I'm quite familiar with color modification, thank you.
Colored filters operate by attenuating the other colors.

Since WHT light is RED + GRN + BLU, and YEL = RED + GRN...
YEL passes RED and GRN and attenuates BLU.
You can call it "minus BLU" if that makes more sense in context.

- Leigh

cliveh · Dec 13, 2016

rayonline_nz said:
Any views on this? I started reading more and they say the yellow green is nice for portraits, and similar to a medium yellow with a bit darker reds or landscapes. So my question such is, should I go for a yellow green instead of the yellow? Occasional portraits, mostly cityscapes and landscapes and urban stuff as I go for a wander walk.

Cheers.

It depends on what type of film you are using, ortho, pan, colour neg/slide and the lighting you are using. To answer the question we need more details.

DREW WILEY · Dec 13, 2016

Leigh - unless you are talking hard separation filters, none of these are pure anyway. What I've found very helpful are the old Kodak Wratten color
filter guide, with the published spectrograms of hundreds of different ones, plus fade factors, transmission figures etc. There are cases where the
eye is fooled into seeing a certain color when the filter actually arrives at it in a different manner. Of course, modern glass filters aren't necessarily
the same as Wratten, and might provide their own spectrograms; but it's a valuable resource anyway, and sometimes turns up in used bookstores, or via book search. Then one can compare that to the spectrogram of any unusual film itself, like extended red or attenuated red (ACROS, for example). I find this more important in the lab when doing really fussy film work like color separations and related precision masking than in the field, where the basic published pan filter factors for daylight seem adequate. But whenever I am working with an unfamiliar black and white film I run it through a whole series of filter tests both here at the coast and at high altitude where the shadows are distinctly bluer. I also have a far larger selection of
filters in the lab, including a number of exotic Wratten gels, than I need in the field. I rarely carry more than two contrast filters when backpacking,
not counting a filter or two for color film.

Leigh B · Dec 13, 2016

DREW WILEY said:
Leigh - unless you are talking hard separation filters, none of these are pure anyway.

Hi Drew,

Yes, filters can have rather bizarre passbands.
I have response charts for all the filters I use.
They're handy for combining filters to get a specific desired response.

I try to avoid color work if possible, but not always possible.
Having taught color techniques at the photo school, I found some students "got it" right away, others never. Don't know why.

- Leigh

rayonline_nz · Dec 13, 2016

cliveh said:
It depends on what type of film you are using, ortho, pan, colour neg/slide and the lighting you are using. To answer the question we need more details.

Acros 100 mainly and the occasional delta 100 and HP5+.

B/W film use - green yellow filter or just the yellow filter?

rayonline_nz

bernard_L

rayonline_nz

macfred

Ko.Fe.

RalphLambrecht

MattKing

Moderator

Helios 1984

DREW WILEY

Andrew O'Neill

Moderator

Sirius Glass

rayonline_nz

Sirius Glass

flavio81

Andrew O'Neill

Moderator

Leigh B

Patrick Robert James

DREW WILEY

DREW WILEY

benjiboy

Leigh B

cliveh

DREW WILEY

Leigh B

rayonline_nz

B/W film use - green yellow filter or just the yellow filter?

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency