CC filters

[Kevin J. Kolosky]

How well (or not so well) do CC filters work for black and white photography.

Examples?

[BrianShaw]

Color correction is not required for B&W.

[Tracy Storer]

Unless you get into pretty strong corrections (minimum 40-50 points or more) they are usually much less saturated than the typical #8,15,25, etc filters generally used for BW. Just going from the gut, but I think a #8 might be around 50Y.

[Bob Salomon]

CC filters are/were color correction filters to blance light sources to film types and to do warming and cooling. With B&W one normally uses contrast filters to emphasize or de-emphasize tones like blue in the sky or green in the trees or red for higher contrast. This is not what cc filters do and cc filters are really not avalable in the same colors and strengths as B&W contrast filters.

[Gudmundur Ingolfsson]

CC stands for Color Correction. In the analog color photography especially with color reversial film those were used to correct color casts in some emultions and to adapt strange color tempratures to either tungsten or daylight color film.
It was very helpful to have color meter to find out the correct filter "pack" or else you had to make a test and then repeat with the the "filterpack". Digital photography and Photoshop has eliminated all this. B&W filter are either for correction to make b&w film see the same contrast as the human eye. Those are yellow and yellow/green to make bue skyes darker and the green in vegitation brighter. B&W contrast filters are orange and red to increse contrast and darken down blue skyes.
Filter for B&W are way much denser than CC filters.

[Drew Wiley]

Sometimes you can get colors in LB or CC filters which are hard to find in conventional B&W contrast filters, like a moderately strong cyan, for example. Don't know
how often you'd need something like that in b&w work, versus the ordinary selection. But sometimes I'll pack a basic blue tungsten conversion filter, just to give a
modest increase to atmospheric haze effect, without resorting to the significant speed reduction that comes with a deep blue separation filter. Ordinary b&w contrast
filters are a lot easier to acquire in premium multicoated version than CC filters, which are getting scarcer as people switch to digital color work. And true Wratten
gels have gotten downright expensive.

[Bob Salomon]

Also, many CC gels, like the Kodak ones, were made with organic dyes which will fade with exposure to light, heat and with time. So be careful what you buy, even in sealed packages.

[Drew Wiley]

I have one of the old Wratten handbooks with all the spectrograms and fade data for various conditions. A very useful reference. The cyan filters are esp likely to
fade. I do use some of these filters in the lab for various special applications. Some of them are no longer made. Another important use of CC filters back in their
heyday is that color film batches were not as tightly controlled as they are now. So when you bought a box of Kodak Professional film, there'd be CC corrections
stamped on the side. Anyone who pines for the "good ole days" probably forgot about that issue.

[Bob Salomon]

I have one of the old Wratten handbooks with all the spectrograms and fade data for various conditions. A very useful reference. The cyan filters are esp likely to
fade. I do use some of these filters in the lab for various special applications. Some of them are no longer made. Another important use of CC filters back in their
heyday is that color film batches were not as tightly controlled as they are now. So when you bought a box of Kodak Professional film, there'd be CC corrections
stamped on the side. Anyone who pines for the "good ole days" probably forgot about that issue.

Or the really old days when the film had to be put aside after exposure to "ripen".

In our squadron it was a pita to do this whenever we had positive color to run.

[Kevin J. Kolosky]

Gentlemen

I probably should have started out my post by saying that I know what CC filters are and what they are used for in color photography.

What I want to know is what happens when you use them for Black and white photography. I think Mr. Storer had the right idea.

Thank you.

[ic-racer]

I found this chart that has approximate mired values for various CC combinations. If you know the mired value of the B&W filter you would like to use this chart might help.
113231
113232