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06/15/2004 01:10:47 PM · #1 |
| Are Black and white filters useful in digital photography? Which is the best way to set camera to get best results? I know that it is possible to snap a shot in colour and manipulate in with a photo program (this making it black and white). Any help please? |
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06/15/2004 01:37:33 PM · #2 |
Having not used on camera filters, with the exception of a newly acquired polorizer, I can only pass on what I understand from my reading.
The filters are used to increase, or decrease, the saturation of a color in the scene. The same can be done in post processing with digital, so they are not essential. However, any post processing that increases some element in the image beyond what was captured in the exposure runs the risk adding noise, so they are not completely without value either.
With digital you have an advantage over film with the ability to set the white balance to get an intentional color cast. I have seen several recommend creating cards with various pairs of opposite colors in place of carrying filters. One 5x7 card can replace dozens of bulky filters. Just set the white balance on a color and it gives the exposer a color cast of its opposite.
David
/edit: clarity
Message edited by author 2004-06-15 13:39:18.
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06/15/2004 05:12:40 PM · #3 |
Originally posted by missjune71:
Are Black and white filters useful in digital photography? Which is the best way to set camera to get best results? I know that it is possible to snap a shot in colour and manipulate in with a photo program (this making it black and white). Any help please? |
I am not sure if they are really useful, I guess you are talking about colored filters here to get a certain greyscale conversion in the processed end result.
The best camera setting would be a simple whitebalance preset before you attach the filter. Either a sunny or overcast preset or a whitecard reading. If you don't do that the TTL whitebalance (taken from the 6900 SCCD I assume) will correct for your colored filter.
The TTL exposure meter will correct for the light that the filter takes away. All other settings can remain as usual.
Just using whitebalance fooling (custom whitebalancing on light blue gives the effect of a light orange fitler and vice versa) could work just as good, with the advantage that there is no filter that eats light and no extra glass in front of the lens.
The downside of both methods is that your shot is as it is (colored) with the 6900. If you had RAW you could correct the whitebalance either back to the natural setting or deliberately to the colored setting. Your colored image from the 6900 is useless if afterwards you rather had it in color and need to reshoot (most times impossible). Color correcting it back close to original colors is possible, but with 8-bit jpeg it degrades the quality in my experience.
An advantage of post-processing is that you can choose your filter afterwards. You can compare filter effects and choose the filter that best fits your scene.
Therefore I never bothered with colored filters for my S602 and always tried to get a good exposed, correct whitebalanced photo in natural color and use post-processing to get an endresult. With a dSLR I'd shoot RAW and play with the whitebalance during the RAW-conversion or use other processing tools. If you have the filters I'd say give it a go. If not, try post-processing.
Up to a month or so ago I used Photoshop's Channel Mixer, but now I switched to a Fred Miranda Photoshop plugin 'BW Workflow Pro'. This plugin offers various presets (including filter imitations), dynamic range increase, manual mixing, duo-, tri- and quadtones and every setting has a slider to control the effect. The advantage is consistent results and faster workflow. Tools like this are available from many organizations. This one is not allowed in the open challenges.
Here is a small example of what can be done:
color//standard BW//red filter
orange filter//yellow filter//green filter
blue filter//BW high contrast//BW very high contrast
Message edited by author 2004-06-15 17:15:08.
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06/15/2004 05:19:50 PM · #4 |
| I shoot with filters all the time. Mainly a red r25 and an infrared r72. Sure, most of the effects can be done in photoshop,. but I've found that they are never quite as good as when shot with a filter. Especially if your talking about infrared. |
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06/15/2004 06:16:43 PM · #5 |
I remember we had a long discussion on this a while ago.
Upshot is that while you can get similar effects in software later on, you can never really emulate the filter effects exactly, due to the colour interpolation that goes on in the sensor mixing various colour channels up to give the final image (if I remember the discussion correctly)
So the filters do have a use, but you can probably get something very similar using the channel mixer or similar tools in software.
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06/15/2004 06:21:46 PM · #6 |
i've been using an R25 filter quite a bit lately and i really love the dramatic effect it gives. here's a few of my pics with the filter:
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06/15/2004 07:41:11 PM · #7 |
I have made a digital fiter set. Originally made it for my Nikon 5700, need to upgrade it (larger) for the D70. But basically the opposite color effect you want to apply is on a card and you set the WB to it. I will get some shots to show herre in a few.
Some of these are hard to tell differences, because of size and the subject. It is overcast and starting to rain here.. These came right out of the camera, without adjustment. The different effects are increased when levels/curves adjustments are used.
Grey Card
 
Blue Intensifier
 
Cool
 
Green intensifier
 
Portrait
 
Red intensifier
 
Warming (alot)
 
XO1
 
Now to fix up these colors a bit and reprint a new card for the D70. If I can find the exact kelvin colors for these filters around, would make it a bit easier. Better go look.
Message edited by author 2004-06-15 20:25:40.
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06/15/2004 08:42:49 PM · #8 |
the commercial idea warm cards
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