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Thread: Tiffen soft contrast filters

  1. #1

    Tiffen soft contrast filters

    Tiffen soft contrast filters are nothing new, but there seems to be nothing about them written from dependable sources... Weird. These filters promise to "darken highlights and to lighten shadows, without need for exposure compensation" - in theory, for example, you could manage to catch a high contrast scene like patches of sun on a forest ground and neither the shadows would be blocked, or the highlight would be burned.

    I know that this would normally be used more in miniature format than in LF, but as I can't find info anywhere, I'll take the chance to ask here. Do these filters really work? What are their limits? Any drawbacks? Do some people actually use them on a regular basis to solve excessive contrast issues? Or should I rather work on my stand development skills?

    Sounds too good to be true!

  2. #2

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    Tiffen soft contrast filters

    Tiffien ultra/super contrast filters, yes, I use them mainly for digital video (Canon XL-1 blows highlights easily), but have used them for MF a couple times. If I can find the image I'm about to describe, I will post a URL. It was 1pm, mid-summer, clear sky, a boy looking down. You know, the usual dramatic contrast difference. Exposed and developed for N-1 on Tri-x. Shadow and highlight detail printed on #3. Detail in focused are was just fine.

    But you really need to try it yourself with your favorite lens. They aren't expensive.

  3. #3

    Tiffen soft contrast filters

    Sounds interesting. A typical problem I have is shooting in the woods on a sunny day. No matter how you compose, there will always be blown and distracting sunny patches on the ground. If the filter could somehow make these few small patches less distracting, I'd find it very useful. Do you think the filter could be effective in such a context?

  4. #4

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    Tiffen soft contrast filters

    Gosh, I do hate to always be the one to tell folks that there really is no Santa Claus. It just breaks my heart. ;0)

    But the cold hard fact is that we are recording light, which has character. Poor quality light will always make a poor quality photograph.

    If you are shooting a child whose face is hidden from your key light, or if you are photographing deep shadow punctuated with tiny polka-dot spots of intense raw sunlight, you need to correct that crummy light before proceeding.

    This is why movie crews show up with diesel generator trucks, two trailer trucks loaded with reflectors, butterflies and spot lights together with a crew of fifty bodybuilders and ex-Marines to move them around.

    This is why commercial still photographers leave the studio with their assistants and fully-loaded location van at 4:00AM, to be set up to expose film at first light.

    This is why Ansel used to sit down on a rock and share a sandwich with his pack mule until the cloud moved.

    These filters, like the N.O. flood shelters, represent an emergency, last-resort lousy fix to an impossible situation. They mush-up the image, create flair, and generally create a distracting special effect look to the photograph.

    I know I rile up the Zone System practitioners when I say this, but there really is no substitute for tasteful lighting. And heroic lab-work (nor special filtration) is not a solution.

    An old photographer long ago told me that from the time you first reach for your camera until you mount the finished print, the photographic process requires a fixed amount of time. If you cut corners on your lighting or metering or film developing, you will more than pay that time back in the printing stage.

    I have found out (the hard way) that a quick and sloppy job of cleaning film holders increases spotting time, resulting in a net increase in production time. I don’t save a thing.

    It would be so nice if we all could just happily wander around on our little nature walks without a care. Then, when a subject pops up unexpectedly and presents itself we could, like Quick-Draw McCaw, just whip out the 8x10 and blap off a perfect snap of it.

    But it just ain’t that simple...

  5. #5

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    Tiffen soft contrast filters

    John Cook Gosh, I do hate to always be the one to tell folks that there really is no Santa Claus. It just breaks my heart. ;0)
    But the cold hard fact is that we are recording light, which has character. Poor quality light will always make a poor quality photograph.

    If you are shooting a child whose face is hidden from your key light, or if you are photographing deep shadow punctuated with tiny polka-dot spots of intense raw sunlight, you need to correct that crummy light before proceeding.


    Hey, sometimes photgraphy takes place in the Real World. Pry your aged ass out of the recliner and see for yourself.

  6. #6

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    Tiffen soft contrast filters

    The only “real world” situation in which ignoring the main component of your photo-graph (light-picture) is acceptable is in the midst of a frantic fire fight in a war zone with a 35mm motor-drive.

    LF photography is not intended to document fast action adventures. It is meant for controlled precision work.

    During my forty years of advertising illustration, my professional colleagues and I spent 95% or more of our time arranging the lighting to make a beautiful, photographable scene. Less than 5% was devoted, at the very end of the day, to capturing a quick “photo-copy” of that scene we had so laboriously created onto film. Often, this mundane task was left to the assistant to perform.

    Karsh's b&w portraits were not about his lab technique. They were about his dramatic placement of the lights.

    Anyone who doesn’t own a basic reflector assortment, is ignorant of basic synchro-sunlight flash technique, or is too lazy, impatient or cavalier to wait for the sun to get into proper position, will always produce unfortunate pictures except when blessed with dumb luck. Heroic filters or special developers are no substitute for careful planning.

    Rude personal attacks and insults hurled at me and at other members of this Forum will not change this basic photographic fact.

  7. #7

    Tiffen soft contrast filters

    I'll certainly agree with John that there is no substitute for good light. But as I don't work in a studio and don't enjoy the benefit of a lighting crew, sometimes there are trade offs to be made. I often work with models. When I want to shoot in a forest, I will usually arrange the appointment for a cloudy day, but sometimes the weatherman is wrong, the day is sunny and there I am with my model.

    What are my options? Yes, I will try to use the gorgeous late day sun when it arrives, but meanwhile I'm pretty restricted. This is when darkroom or filter tricks will prove useful. Sure I won't get the best possible picture, but I'd rather have a very good one than none at all. If indeed it IS possible to get a "very good" picture with a given trick, which is precisely the issue here.

    Now that we agree that there is no Santa Claus and that there are drawbacks to gimmicky tricks, could you tell me more about the limits of soft contrast filters? "They mush-up the image, create flair, and generally create a distracting special effect look to the photograph", you say. Can you elaborate on this? Is the effect worse than the result of stand processing, for example?

    The trouble is that there seems to be no factual information about them anywhere.

  8. #8

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    Tiffen soft contrast filters

    Cook Rude personal attacks and insults hurled at me and at other members of this Forum will not change this basic photographic fact.

    I was speaking to you and not 'the others', so your attempt to magnify the claim did not work.

    JC, you are the one who always introduces the age thing, the slackened retirement pose. And I doubt you are older than I am, and you are likely 15 years younger than our oldest two members. So when I made my remark, it was simply identifying your own penchant for posing as a geezer. Seems you will play that card whenever you want attention. Well, you got it.

    Now back to the post: I used a MF camera for the picture in question. It was a documentary effort. If I could have predicted ahead of time that the infinite number of factors in reality would have converged to the particuar moment in question, I could have burried a light under the soil where he was working in order to fill-light properly. It doesn't work that way. We ain't talking the Hollywood Reality you are so fond of.

    Are we clear, young man? (where's the smiles here?)

  9. #9

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    Tiffen soft contrast filters

    Philippe Gauthier asks for specifics.

    I looked and looked and I have no home computer images of the image I mentioned, except a terribly diminished JPEG used on a web page. Perhaps I have the original on a machine at work and will check next week.

    In the meantime, let me assure you that even their #3 doesn't terribly "mush up" the image, nor cause flare. JC might be thinking of the specific soft filters used in cinephotography, or the same when used for purposeful soft effects. JC will remind us that Hollywood doesn't make images by accident, so if something is mushy, it's what they want.

    If you were to shoot military rez targets with the filter, you would see a difference, of course. They are intended to reduce contrast, which accounts, in part, for perceived 'sharpness'. You can get much the same effect by shooting at a wide aperture with most long lenses. I suspect the filter causes no degredation that many, many photographers consider ordinary through modestly negligent technique.

    That said, I owe you some examples and will put the filters in the bag for future work. I would do something for you today, but we are taking advantage of this warm day to do last minute preparations for winter. With that, I'm off to do some heavy labor. Later.

  10. #10

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    Tiffen soft contrast filters

    Philippe, let me answer you, point by point.

    What are your options? A small hand-held reflector card and a flashgun.

    You don’t enjoy the benefit of a lighting crew? Neither did I as an art school student. Adapt. If a 4' x 4' x 3/4" plywood Matthews reflector board is too heavy, get one of those round silver metallic fabric jobs with the spring steel hoop that they use on the swimsuit annual edition.

    There is no factual information anywhere? Yes there is, like here:

    http://www.ppa.com/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=44

    For several thousand dollars they will teach you all there is to know about tastefully photographing people by yourself outdoors.

    I am perfectly happy and willing to share for free what my several thousand dollars in tuition bought. But I’m definitely not going to endure personal abuse from socially inept people in order to force it upon others.

    Perhaps the late Dr. Leo Buscaglia had a point when he advanced his theory about giving advice: “Smart people don’t need it and stupid people won’t take it, so you might as well just keep your mouth shut!”

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