What is (Peak) color-tone viewer for?

[hky0125]

Dear all, please forgive my ignorance of this. I am wondering what is a color-tone viewer, why and how to use it?

I know Peak has two types viewer, one is mono-tone and another is color-tone. The mono one has 80 orange filter that gives tonality that's similar to what film would see (I usually did it with cellphone), but what is the color-tone viewer for? Is it act as same tool but for shooting negative or slide?

Many thanks

 

[koraks]

I've added 'Peak' to the thread title to make it a little more descriptive.

 

[Chuck1]

Zone vi made one too, never seen one in person, and never been sure what they were for

 

[xkaes]

I know that some viewers are designed for movie film use. My understanding is that they mimic the contrast that a movie film will produce -- so you can adjust the lighting, exposure., etc. That may or may not be what this "PEAK" does.

 

[Kino]

In cinematography, they are used as quick, visual check of lighting ratios.

You are supposed to look through it with one eye and "flick" it in and out of your field of vision to see where the high, mid and low tones are falling.

This rapid movement is to not allow your eye to adapt to the filter.

I have a set of both Peak viewers and have found them of limited use except for extremely bright exteriors or heavily lighted sets.

 

[MarkS]

The b/w viewing filter is a (Kodak) Wratten #90. So you can look it up in the Kodak Filters book and learn more than you would probably ever need to know.
As mentioned, its purpose is to let you visualize the scene as rendered by b/w film. I'd tried them in the past, but never found them of much use. Then this year I was offered a ZoneVI version at a swap meet for $5.00. So I had to have it, and used it carefully this year when working outdoors with the 4x5. Still didn't find it necessary, and it's just one more thing to keep track of.
That's just me... others may find it helpful.
I never knew there was one for color photography.

 

[murdockhendrix]

The Peak Mono-Tone and Color-Tone Viewers

To show the filter colors: Mono Viewer top and Color Viewer bottom. Hope this helps.

For size comparison

 

[koraks]

It looks pretty much like a 2-stop ND filter. Which I suspect is what it is, for all intents and purposes. An old friend of mine used to work in the cine industry and I recall him telling me one time he used to use a viewer to guesstimate/get a feeling for highlights & shadows. He described the same procedure @Kino gave:

You are supposed to look through it with one eye and "flick" it in and out of your field of vision to see where the high, mid and low tones are falling.

It's a bit similar to using the DoF preview on an SLR camera very momentarily.