How to filter autumn colors in B&W film

[studiocarter]

A Wratten G orange filter was used on a tree that had an early patch of orange leaves on it. Nothing happened. It is not shown here. The orange patch did not turn white on the film. What is a better way? Use a yellow or red filter? The orange did work on sky to pop clouds. And a red filter changed deep red roses to white. How do you get autumn colors to lighten?
Thanks,
Michael

 

[studiocarter]

The top one was shot straight f16 1/100 tripod. The same with the bottom one only with an orange filter added f8 1/100 tripod. This is a very great enlargement from 120 Arista 100 film processed in D-76 9 min. The orange filter lightened the trees close by, darkened the sky, and lets you see trees in the farthest distance. There is a hill above the bridge that cannot be seen in the top one. However, depth suffers in receding planes of dark to light gray as the no filter photo looks better in that regard. The orange did cut through the haze though.

 

[Rick A]

The orange filter did boost contrast a bit, comparing the bottom photo to the top. Have you try using the red filter? It may give you what you want.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Seems like a waste of time using B&W. The whole point of photographing the fall color is the color! There is a basic problem. Green and the set {yellow, orange and red} are complimentary colors. Use a green filter and the warmer colors are darkened. Use a Y, O, or R filter and the greens are darkened. The overall effect is pretty much the same some leaves dark some light. Once all the leaves turn they become warm colors and a yellow, orange or red filter is not going to get you anywhere.

 

[Kilgallb]

Hmmm, capture the fall colours in B&W. Challenge accepted!

 

[Graham06]

I took the two images, and tinted the orange filter one orange in photoshop and merged it with a slightly bluish version of the unfiltered image and manually lined them up. You can see the orange filter clearly has an effect and the toning is intriguing. Care would have to be taken with registration at all steps. I don't know if the background trees had a mix of green and orange leaves yet.

I'm not sure how you'd make a final print. Perhaps digitally as in this experiment. Perhaps make an orange toned print and lay over a cyanish transparency. Getting registration and levels right would be fussy.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

Michael,

Welcome to the real world with objects that reflect complex spectra and unsaturated colors; not the world of a Macbeth color chart. As you can extrapolate from the toning in the picture above, many of the "green" trees reflect a lot of orange and red as well. Using an orange filter does block the green, but that secondary predominance of orange/red lightens that foliage a lot more than we might think after the exposure compensation for the filter is applied.

Viewing the scene through the filter before shooting helps a bit to spot this (mostly with the stronger filters). Metering through the filter also helps to "see" the separation (whether you base your exposure on these readings or not is another can of worms...).

I've had pretty good luck over the years using yellow, orange and red filters for fall colors, i.e., separating them from the "darker" greens. That said, you often need to filter-bracket shots where the inherent tonal separation isn't large. Increasing negative and/or print contrast helps as well.

Best,

Doremus

 

[studiocarter]

View attachment 165346
I took the two images, and tinted the orange filter one orange in photoshop and merged it with a slightly bluish version of the unfiltered image and manually lined them up. You can see the orange filter clearly has an effect and the toning is intriguing. Care would have to be taken with registration at all steps. I don't know if the background trees had a mix of green and orange leaves yet.

I'm not sure how you'd make a final print. Perhaps digitally as in this experiment. Perhaps make an orange toned print and lay over a cyanish transparency. Getting registration and levels right would be fussy.

WOW! That's really COOL!
What about digitally printing two negs and contact printing them?
No, the trees were all green.

 

[Graham06]

What about digitally printing two negs and contact printing them?

I think that wouldn't work (if you used BW paper) because the toned image is really a partially two colour image ( because you can have dark orange and dark gray, and light orange and light grey)
A BW image has colours in a line from black to white
A toned image has colours in a curved line through a colour cube from one colour to another
A colour image has colours in a sub-cube of a colour cube
My test sample has colours in a plane through a colour cube.

My inspiration for this was seeing someone make colour photos from Kodak Tri-X which has a distinctive look in black and white. They shot the same scene onto tri-x through red, green and blue filters, and combined the resulting negatives ( in a way I won't try explain because I'll get it wrong)

I'd probably go the digital route and print with a computer printer. I love analog film and black and white, but don't feel it's cheating to use digital methods.

 

[removed account4]

hi michael

for fall colors i typically make 3 expoures with regular b/w film. one with a red filter, one with a blue and one with a green one
and i make a tri chrome. otherwise you'd have to use color film

 

[kreeger]

Not all films see foliage the same way due to their own "color blindness" which are some of the nuances we enjoy about them.
Best advise: Find a scene. Put your camera on a tripod, take your filters and TEST IT YOURSELF. Your camera and your lens/lenscoatings/filter types/ can sway the results.
Make a print of each and compare the differences.

SHARE WHAT YOU LEARNED!
Once you know for sure, you won't guess again

PS if you use Acros you may be in for a real surprise about filters and their effect/lack there of .. of change

 

[BenKrohn]

The only fall color around here this time of year is cypress, bonus that it grows near water. I'm not a fan of that composition, or maybe it's the time of day. This is Arista Edu ultra 400. Pentax 645 80-160mm(probably at 80mm and somewhere between f8 & f16) . Processed in D-76 for 13 minutes 70ish F. I may go back tomorrow with some HP5 and a red filter. I hate the boring sky. This was in the morning about a month ago.

 

[pentaxuser]

I had a quick look through a couple of books with chapters on B&W filters and in both cases the effect of an orange filter wasn't shown. It seems that yellow, red and green are used most often. In both cases the red made a considerable difference in terms of lightening an orange colour but in one case it was a paint colour and in the other case it was a fruit where an orange was turned substantially white.

Based on the OP's experience it would seem that tree leaves may be a different "kettle of fish" and as others have said will not react to an orange filter in the same way as paint or even an orange vegetable.

pentaxuser

 

[M. Axel Wikstrom]

Here in New Mexico the aspens up in the hills are a very bright yellow this time of year. I got some good results with a yellow filter, but it probably isn't needed, as the contrast between the aspens and the much darker conifers is very good. A yellow or orange filter will darken the sky. You can also use a green filter to reduce the contrast and retain more detail in the conifers.

And for those who say we're crazy for using black and white with fall colors, you obviously don't know what a fine art black and white print looks like. (Might as well use an iPhone if all you want is pretty colors.)

 

[Vaughn]

Under the redwoods, the Fall colors are limited to yellow. A yellow filter works wonderfully. Of course I am not dealing with an excess of blue light that you have in your image.

 

[LAG]

... What is a better way? Use a yellow or red filter? The orange did work on sky to pop clouds. And a red filter changed deep red roses to white. How do you get autumn colors to lighten?...

Use some filters in combination (...), study well wavelength's curves and filter factor ... Overall, I agree with Doremus Scudder post with the viewing-metering-bracketing helping part.

...The top one was shot straight f16 1/100 tripod. The same with the bottom one only with an orange filter added f8 1/100 tripod...

Two stops?, it was your filter factor?

 

[studiocarter]

Two stops?, it was your filter factor?

Still working on that one. 1 1/2 stops is probably more correct I determined afterwards, shooting a dark stone church with and without the filter. No color in the stone to effect. The sky did darken nicely with the orange filter.
BTW I located more series VI filters and will try the red filter on fall colors. That one is 3 stops for sure. But the dark green and dark blue ones were never used. 3 Stops I bet.
Michael

 

[studiocarter]

Another version of this had been uploaded but it went away. The orange filter works for me with one to one and a half stops more light. I've used the red filter with +3 stops and is worked differently with try-x and with HP5. Better with the X. So it will depend on the film and processing what happens.
The picture of the tree was f11 orange filter 1/100 Arista 100 in d76 9 min 1:1

The center of the tree was bright orange. The rest of it was green.

 

[LAG]

...The orange filter works for me with one to one and a half stops more light. I've used the red filter with +3 stops and is worked differently with try-x and with HP5. Better with the X. So it will depend on the film and processing what happens.

Beautiful collection! For me (that) orange is (1 & 1/3) more or less the same, and of course it (does) depends on the film. Thanks for sharing that tree example. It seems that the sky is full of "stars" ...

 

[studiocarter]

Stars?! I may not ever fix that now. It was dust on the plastic sleeve. Only an artist's eye sees stars in dust.

 

[pentaxuser]

View attachment 165458
Another version of this had been uploaded but it went away. The orange filter works for me with one to one and a half stops more light. I've used the red filter with +3 stops and is worked differently with try-x and with HP5. Better with the X. So it will depend on the film and processing what happens.
The picture of the tree was f11 orange filter 1/100 Arista 100 in d76 9 min 1:1
View attachment 165459
The center of the tree was bright orange. The rest of it was green.

Is that a scan of a print and is the lighter part of the tree the area that was orange? If so the orange filter appears to have worked quite well

pentaxuser

 

[jim appleyard]

Seems like a waste of time using B&W. The whole point of photographing the fall color is the color! QUOTE]

True, but there a challenge to record those colors with b/w! My choice is APX100 (old stock) in Pyrocat HD; that seems to do a great job of bringing out all the subtle gray tones.

 

[studiocarter]

The leaves have gone bright gold on a nearby tree and deep red on another. The sky was blue with fluffy white clouds and the sun was behind me. What a perfect opportunity to use the Y, O, R, filters. This time 400 speed Arista was used so smaller iris settings could keep things in focus hand held.

The negatives all turned out ok and are drying. There are good images on all the frames. That is almost a first.

There was almost no green remaining on the trees. I took color digital reference shots for comparisons.

 

[studiocarter]

Ahhh, the effect is much like Infrared photography.

This tree was deep red. But the gold tree came out even whiter!

 

[markjwyatt]

I sued HP5plus and a medium Y filter for these:


autumn by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr


mottled leaves by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr


Holly and Autumn Leaves by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr


Autumn Canopy by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr