Filters for photographing lawns with TXP

[Frank Petronio]

So if you had to photograph people's lawns using black and white Tri-X and wanted to capture the texture and patterns in the grass, what filtration (if any) would you use and why?

[Brian C. Miller]

Photographing grass? Man, I thought.. oh, lawn grass! Right, right, I knew that!

Ok, seriously (as far as that goes), that would depend on what I wanted to do, and the condition of the grass.

For instance for a well-manicured lawn, I could use a deep red filter to turn the grass black. I'd water it so there'd be lots of reflection under a good sun.

I could use infrared and turn the grass fluffy white.

I could use lawn green and get it whitish.

I could use yellow and get a nice neutral grey, but I'd use dawn or evening light to get shadows in it.

Now let's say that the grass is dry. The color is tan to light brown, and maybe a few weeds. I wouldn't bother with a filter for the grass. Everything would rely on the sun's position.

[Mark Woods]

Hello Frank. Singh-Ray makes some colored polarizes that could come in handy. A tilt on the lens could come in handy too.

[Brian Ellis]

You're talking about a standard green lawn? Depending on the direction of the light source a polarizer in some situations might minimize glare and help see textures and patterns more clearly but other than that possibility I don't offhand know why you'd use any filter to photograph a lawn. As I'm sure you know, in b&w photography colored filters are used for two purposes, either to create separation among colors that would otherwise merge in b&w (e.g. a red apple against green foliage) or to alter tonal density (e.g. darken a blue sky). I wouldn't offhand think either of these uses would be relevant with a lawn of a more or less uniform green color. You could brighten or darken the lawn with a green or red filter but you could accomplish the same thing without a filter by increasing or decreasing exposure. And if the lawn is all green there are no colors to separate.

[Ron Marshall]

Grass is about middle grey. Lighten or darken from there is desired.

But, as suggested, a polariser will reduce glare.

[sun of sand]

deep cyan filter for ortho response
i think red would work well for gloomy tall wispy grass

i'd look up info on golf course photographers

[BradS]

320TXP and grass....kinda a trick question Frank. Somewhat counter-intuitively, the green filter does not make green grass lighter....not with TXP anyway. I guess it depends to a very large degree on the sun or lack there of though. Here in California, where the sun tends toward harsh, I like grass without a filter or occasionally, with just a polarizer filter. Over expose a bit ( irate TXP at 250 YMMV). I prefer the grass to be a little lighter.

[John Kasaian]

I'd try using ortho film.

[Harold_4074]

Back in the dim reaches of time, Kodak recommended a medium-yellow filter with panchromatic film in order to render foliage more naturally. I believe it was a K2, and for films like Plus-X and Panatomic-X. The idea was to keep trees and the like from appearing too dark; the yellow cut the excessive blue sensitivity without much affecting the greens, so the resulting print was more "natural". But, then again, the modern emulsions may not have the same sensitrometic curves.

How this would translate to the photography of lawns, I'm not sure.

[Brian C. Miller]

Actually, the real question is, "What do the lawn photographs look like right now?"

But the truest question is, since it is Frank who is asking, "Who is on that lawn, and what is she doing?"