Underwhelmed by Red Filter effect

[reddesert]

The sky is blue because light scattering off molecules in the air has a very strong wavelength dependence favoring the blue (Rayleigh scattering off particles that are much smaller than the wavelength of light). However, light scattering off larger particles such as water droplets and haze is less blue. For the photographer, this means that humidity and haze will make the sky less blue and decrease the effect of the red filter (or yellow or orange). At high altitude, humidity and haze are less, and UV is stronger, but it isn't solely altitude.

In the UK on a clear day, you'll get less of a dark-sky effect than you would in the Southwest US on a clear day with 15% humidity. If you take the same scene with no filter, yellow filter, and red filter, you'll see that there is an effect, it's just much less pronounced when there is humidity or haze.

 

[pentaxuser]

I am starting to think that the sky is just not blue enough at these latitudes (unless maybe you start to climb up a bit).

As a fellow U.K. resident I think there is a lot in what you say. Note the latitude of the person who took skies with the effect you are looking for. We just don't get those kind of deep blue skies that they do in S Cal., Arizona etc plus altitude helps.

I once saw a picture where at latitudes close those you could reach with maybe a 4 hour flight due South from the U.K. and at an altitude that you could reach if you put Snowdon on top of Ben Nevis, the taker was able to achieve a black sky with a yellow filter the like of such I have never managed in the U.K. with anything other than IR. The closest I have ever come to anything approaching a shot like Coldeye's or Pieter12 was with a red 25 and a polariser on a brilliant blue sky day on the coast in Cornwall . Even then the operative word was close ( but not quite there)

I like your shot as it is but I understand your frustration at not getting a much darker sky than you did but I fear that there is not a lot you can do about it short of my 2 suggestions about red plus polariser and the better of the two options in my experience which is IR.

pentaxuser

 

[sterioma]

I am amazed you can give the sky that much exposure (judging from the good exposure in the shadows), develop 'normally', and not have blasted out the sunlit branches in the center of the image.

I metered the grass on the right at the base of the fence and placed those grass blades into zone III. The afternoon sun was coming from the left, passing through the branches on the left, so they were not in the shade.
The bright branches in the the middle are actually from a dead tree which has fallen just before the lockdown started and has not been removed yet. There is some evidence of detail there in the negative.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

A red filter is often described as the one giving the most "dramatic" effects in terms of separation of clouds from the sky. At times you see photos online where the sky looks almost black.

I have just acquired a Heliopan red filter (I believe it is the requivalent of a "25"), which I mounted in front of my 50mm Distagon lens and I can say that I was not blow away from what I have found. The sky these days in England is as blue as it can get, with frequent clearing after wind and storms. Still, while there is some separation between the clouds and the sky, it is nowhere near to be "dramatic".

I have used a polarizer in the past with my 35mm camera (mostly for slides), but I did not particarly like the gradient when using a wide angle lens. Is an infrared film my only option? Or should I just move to the mountains

Here's an example: film is HP5+ exposed at 160 with 3 extra stops for the red filter. Scan from negative, with no changes to contrast.
View attachment 246805

This does not look right. Either exposure off, processing or scan not optimal.

 

[sterioma]

As a fellow U.K. resident I think there is a lot in what you say [...] the taker was able to achieve a black sky with a yellow filter the like of such I have never managed in the U.K. with anything other than IR

pentaxuser

Thanks, this is somewhat comforting, that I am not doing something terribly wrong... and "it just is what it is". I have a couple of rolls of Rollei Infrared, if the sky opens up a bit tomorrow and I can see some "blue" I am going to give it a go (I have both this red filter from Heliopan and a "true" chinese infrared filter).

 

[Sirius Glass]

If shooting HP5 at 160 was ok for Ansel Adams I am sure it can be ok for me too

I used a spot meter here, metered the shadows and opened up 2 stops. As I said, there is plenty of detail in the negative so exposure is fine.

That was a different film. HP5 was introduced in 1976 and discontinued in 1989. You are using HP5+, a different film.

 

[sterioma]

That was a different film. HP5 was introduced in 1976 and discontinued in 1989. You are using HP5+, a different film.

Sorry it was meant to be a joke, even though I would be surprised if the film were THAT much different in terms of speed.

I established 160 after tests with my meter, choice of developer(HC-110), etc... Checked with a densitometer for the first density just about 0.10 above film base plus fog.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Sorry it was meant to be a joke, even though I would be surprised if the film were THAT much different in terms of speed.

I established 160 after tests with my meter, choice of developer(HC-110), etc... Checked with a densitometer for the first density just about 0.10 above film base plus fog.

But is your light meter calibrated? Shutters calibrated? I was having trouble getting what I wanted in the prints. I went to Alan Ross' workshop and discovered that my light meters needed to be professionally calibrated. Once the spot meter was recalibrated, everything just fell into place.

 

[Eric Rose]

I feel your metering method needs some work. Especially how you deal with shadows. A clear north sky is pretty darn close to 18%.

 

[Vaughn]

Is there any software in your scanner that corrects contrast behind the scenes?

Do you have a shot of the same scene without filter? That would be an interesting test to do and compare. I did that with 6x6 (Rollei) and a bunch of different filters back in 1978 for the heck of it...the contact sheet was interesting. It resurfaces around the house every once in a while.

 

[Arvee]

in Post #13 you stated: "I used a spot meter here, metered the shadows and opened up 2 stops. As I said, there is plenty of detail in the negative so exposure is fine."

I metered the grass on the right at the base of the fence and placed those grass blades into zone III. The afternoon soon was coming from the left, passing through the branches on the left, so they were not in the shade.
The bright branches in the the middle are actually from a dead tree which has fallen just before the lockdown started and has not been removed yet. There is some evidence of detail there in the negative.

When I look at the scan, noting that you metered the grasses on the right, they don't look like they're on zone III; that area looks more like zone V.

In the top quote above, if you meter the shadows and want them on zone III you close down two stops. If you meter highlights, you open 2-2 1/2 stops to place the highlights.
Did you misspeak in post #13 as to the process of exposure? Did you really mean you opened two stops?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

If you plan on scanning, shoot color film, amd convert to BW after the scan. Then you can control the blue sky in post to make it darker using luminosity

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks, this is somewhat comforting, that I am not doing something terribly wrong... and "it just is what it is". I have a couple of rolls of Rollei Infrared, if the sky opens up a bit tomorrow and I can see some "blue" I am going to give it a go .

It might be the case that the scan doesn't show what others are saying is the problem with the negative. Scanning seems to create a lot of problems nowadays when we have difficulty deciding what is going on. If I had my way scans would be of actual darkroom prints where the poster could alter the scan of the print to resemble the darkroom print that he has in from of him but that represents "turning the clock back" so isn't going to happen but it might help if you could show us a digital photo of the negative. It might eliminate some suggestions that are being made about your exposure problems or even eliminate that you have any exposure problems

Try your Rollei infrared and show us the results before you do anything else. I fear the truth is closer to the atmosphere, altitude and latitude here in the U.K. that is working against the effect you desire.

pentaxuser

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I am not sure it is, but somewhere I remember that R25 is also called 8x, which is what this filter has on the ring.
This is a Heliopan filter, which I assume should be decent enough.

It's a Heliopan, so it should be fine.

 

[jimjm]

Here's one recent shot where I used an orange filter and spot-metered the scene. I wasn't too concerned about the sky, but the light was very harsh and I was trying not to overexpose the cliff and scree slope in the distance. Plus, there are lots of different rock colors in Death Valley that will give different reflected readings.
I didn't record my exposures, but I metered the brightest areas of the far cliff and set it at Zone VII (opened-up 2 stops). At that exposure, the darker sunlit rock in the center foreground read about Zone V and the dark foreground shadows read Zone II and III. This worked out well as I wanted to retain some detail in the shadows, but was able to print them a bit darker if needed. I also took two additional shots bracketed one stop over and one stop under, and either one would have also been printable. I picked this one as it had the best cloud pattern.
A straight print at Grade 2 was fairly flat, but I saw that I had not lost any detail In the highlights or shadows, which is what I was going for.
Overall print contrast at Grade 4 added a lot of punch. Burned-in the sky for 50% more time and this brought out the cloud texture. Also burned in the rock in the left foreground +25% as it was a bit too hot.
Camera was a Bronica RF645 with 65mm lens, Acros 100 developed in D-76 1:1.

 

[grain elevator]

Overexposed or not doesn't matter. It doesn't affect the tonal relationships. The overall brightness is adjusted in or after scanning, and it does look fine. To me both the point about not so blue sky and the point made by cowanw about greens being darkened by the red filter as well make sense, I think it's probably both. As most of the picture is greenery and blue sky, there simply isn't much that was not darkened by the red filter, just the path surface and the fence, the brightness of which the viewer doesn't know, so even they don't form a reference point to make the sky seem dark.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I am not sure it is, but somewhere I remember that R25 is also called 8x, which is what this filter has on the ring.
This is a Heliopan filter, which I assume should be decent enough.

Isn;t the 8x the filter factor. You divide it into the ISO to determine the actual ISO settings for your meter. So if you're shooting let's say Tmax 400 (ISO 400), you divide by 8 and get 50. S0 you set your meter at 50. It's also 3 stops (1/2x1/2x1/2) 2-4-8. 400 - 200-100- 50.

 

[mooseontheloose]

The sky is blue because light scattering off molecules in the air has a very strong wavelength dependence favoring the blue (Rayleigh scattering off particles that are much smaller than the wavelength of light). However, light scattering off larger particles such as water droplets and haze is less blue. For the photographer, this means that humidity and haze will make the sky less blue and decrease the effect of the red filter (or yellow or orange). At high altitude, humidity and haze are less, and UV is stronger, but it isn't solely altitude.

In the UK on a clear day, you'll get less of a dark-sky effect than you would in the Southwest US on a clear day with 15% humidity. If you take the same scene with no filter, yellow filter, and red filter, you'll see that there is an effect, it's just much less pronounced when there is humidity or haze.

I agree with this 100%. I often shoot infrared and rarely get dark black skies anymore, because of the haze and humidity that is prevalent in most of Asia (where I mostly travel/shoot). The skies are just....blah. But when I go home to Canada in the countryside where the humidity is quite low and the blue skies are the deep blue you want, or in high/dry heat places (like Egypt/Sudan - my most recent trip) the black skies returned. Even my shots on FP4+ look like infrared because of the red filter and the weather/atmospheric conditions.

 

[Ian C]

Bear in mind that the “blueness” of a blue sky can vary considerably, depending on upper-atmosphere humidity as well as air pollution. It also varies depending on the direction relative to the sun. At some angles the sky can be quite deeply blue, while in another direction the color is much less pronounced. The usual contrast filters that darken a blue sky relative to clouds: yellow, green, yellow-green, orange, and red, still require a reasonable depth of blueness to work as wanted. The photos of posts 1, 8, 10, 15, and 40 nicely illustrate this fact.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

As a fellow U.K. resident I think there is a lot in what you say. Note the latitude of the person who took skies with the effect you are looking for. We just don't get those kind of deep blue skies that they do in S Cal., Arizona etc plus altitude helps.

I once saw a picture where at latitudes close those you could reach with maybe a 4 hour flight due South from the U.K. and at an altitude that you could reach if you put Snowdon on top of Ben Nevis, the taker was able to achieve a black sky with a yellow filter the like of such I have never managed in the U.K. with anything other than IR. The closest I have ever come to anything approaching a shot like Coldeye's or Pieter12 was with a red 25 and a polariser on a brilliant blue sky day on the coast in Cornwall . Even then the operative word was close ( but not quite there)

I like your shot as it is but I understand your frustration at not getting a much darker sky than you did but I fear that there is not a lot you can do about it short of my 2 suggestions about red plus polariser and the better of the two options in my experience which is IR.

pentaxuser

We get those skys in northern Canada. Even higher latitude than you.

 

[Paul Manuell]

I felt the same underwhelment (real word?) when I used an old 35mm camera last year, fitted with the only lens I have for it - a 16mm fisheye - and red filter. Some of the shots came out with a half decent dramatic sky, but most didn't. 2 examples here of one that worked and one that didn't.
All these zone numbers being mentioned go way over my head, and the camera I used was very basic with no metering modes, so they were just straight shots. I'm in the UK btw.

 

[MattKing]

I didn't realize that you had blue skies in the UK.
Blue-belles in Kent, but blue skies?

 

[Paul Manuell]

I didn't realize that you had blue skies in the UK.
Blue-belles in Kent, but blue skies?

Occasionally

 

[sterioma]

It might be the case that the scan doesn't show what others are saying is the problem with the negative.[...] if you could show us a digital photo of the negative. It might eliminate some suggestions that are being made about your exposure problems or even eliminate that you have any exposure problems
pentaxuser

I normally print in the darkroom of my camera club, but I cannot access that yet due to the lockdown. Here's a scan of the negative on light table, shot with my phone.

 

[sterioma]

But is your light meter calibrated? Shutters calibrated? I was having trouble getting what I wanted in the prints. I went to Alan Ross' workshop and discovered that my light meters needed to be professionally calibrated. Once the spot meter was recalibrated, everything just fell into place.

That's interesting. No, my meters or shutters have not been calibrated. But as long as they are consistent I should be fine, right?