Filters and Digital Age

[more photography]

For those seasoned photographers, I am a relative new comer to large format, recently being using digital, therfore apart from a polarizer and Graduated Neutal density flters I don't use warm up filters or an other filters.

Now I am shooting film and eventually the good ines will be scanned and corrected with Photoshop, do you thing warm up filters or any others are as useful, and woould continue to use them

Your experience and thoughts

[Ron Marshall]

I sometimes use a polariser or ND grad with color film, and several colored filters with b/w.

[Gordon Moat]

Basically you get it as close as you can in the camera and on the film. Then when you scan later, if there is a slight adjustment needed, you can do that. Larger adjustments could cause problems in some areas of your scan. The concept is that you give yourself the closest to optimum image you can on film, and then minimize your time post processing and scanning.

Since I do lots of night and low light imaging, I find the various blue filters very useful. Usually that means an 82A or 82B, though rarely an 80A. In daylight, I sometimes shoot at the coast, under hazy conditions, so sometimes an 81A will be use to warm things up a bit, or provide some mild UV control. I only use a polarizer when I am dealing with reflective surfaces.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[mrladewig]

If you're shooting with daylight balanced color film, then you'll definitely need warming filters in addition to those you've already got (GND and CPL). Daylight film will take a blue cast when you shoot in shade or in cloudy conditions and there will be times when you don't want that. You might also want 1 stop gnds which aren't often needed or recommended on digital. In digital it wouldn't be worth it, but especially on E-6 film, it always helps to get it just right when shot.

Then if you shoot B&W the range of B&W color filters comes into play. Yellows and yellow-green and orange and red...

[cjbroadbent]

MRF,
I never go on location without a red and an ND wedge and a screw-in orange. The wedge for sky and the window side of interiors - the orange for B&W sky and long daylight exposures on tungsten colour film. I never found any use for the polarizer.
However, when the subject stands still, it's a hard choice between that and a multi-shot digital blended with an HDR processor like Photomatix.
Pride and predjudice usually makes me go for LF and filters though it's easier to screw-up LF than it is to screw-up digital.
(Also, on location I'm risking $30,000 of digital equipment against $250 of home -made LF)
Here's my red wedge:
http://i318.photobucket.com/albums/mm440/downstairs_2008/5x7.jpg

[Paul Kierstead]

For B&W, definitely the coloured filters are handy. It would require a lot of photoshop work to do what they do (careful masking, etc).

What is not recorded cannot be fixed in Photoshop. This is particularly relevant if you are shooting narrow latitude film like transparency film, so things like grad filters, split density and polarizers (which can limit their effect) still have a role. As others point out, generally the closer you can get to the your final image the better.

That being said, if you don't shoot B&W, or don't shoot bright skies or the like, you are quite likely to getaway with minimal filters and post-process instead. YMMV.

[C. D. Keth]

I do everything in camera since I hate doing more than I have to sitting in front of a computer.

[Kirk Gittings]

If the film is getting scanned or I am shooting digital, I have quit using graduated filters as I can do so much more with gradients in PS. In terms of color balance with transparency film, I try to get it in the ballpark with filters and fine tune it in the scan UNLESS there are light sources in the image and I will do it all in PS so as to not risk additional flair from the filter. In terms of LF b&w to be scanned, I prefer to filter in the field, but with difficult subjects I will shoot color negs and add filtration effects in the conversion.

[Greg Miller]

For color film it is better to use a warming filter in the field rather than try to correct for blue cast in Photoshop.

For digital I only use polarizer and GNDs. For film I only add warming filters.

[eric black]

Since I dislike computers and often show my clients actual chromes on a light table to let them select what they ultimately want, I do the filtering in the field. I dont carry gradient filters though- I at times dodge and burn using a black card held in front of the lens.

[Aahx]

I use a Lee filter system myself with a current total of 6 4"x6" (100cmx150cm) graduated resin filters. I have a pack of 3 neutral density (.3, .6, .9) and there sunset trio of graduated red, orange and yellow. This is all for color transparancy film. For black and white I currently use screw on red, orange, and green. Though I intend to replace them with a 4"x4" resin set (that fits in the above holder) soon.

[Bruce Pollock]

Hhhmmm.... this is a really interesting question that I asked myself after I recently purchased a couple of high-end Rodenstock filters that I could not pass up because they were on sale at half price in my local camera store. I guess the market for in-camera colour or contrast correction devices is dwindling just as fast as the film market.

I, too, think it's best to do as much as you can on film before you scan it.

[roscoetuff-Skip Mersereau]

Wow. Twelve years later... I'm still a guy who likes (grew up on) filters for B&W in particular. Get it right in the camera, STILL less to do in post. Get it wrong in camera? Well that's why we take a backup shot or wait until tomorrow. For me, photography is like fishing... you go out and sometimes you get what you're looking for, sometimes you don't. That's part of the thrill: capturing what you see, letting the light come and fill in for you. Portraits don't work that way per se, but for landscape (at my level) this is part of the joy.... where joy remains a mix of positives and negatives. Photoshop, Capture One, and all the rest: You can spend hours trying to turn mediocre into great. Been there done that. I'd rather spend the same on a great negative to start with. Let Ilford and Kodak, Lee, Tiffen, Rodenstock, etc do some of the work before I step in.

[C. D. Keth]

Boy did you dig up a fossil. I answered twelve years ago and I still feel the same. I now carry a pola, a red 25, a med yellow, an orange, an X1 green, a pale pink Fl-D filter, and an 80A blue. I'll probably get a set of ND filters in the near future. I'd like to have ND0.3 through ND1.2 available in full stop strengths.

[roscoetuff-Skip Mersereau]

Hey CDK, thanks. Call it a semi-fossil (me) digs up a fossil (this post). I'm using a Polarizer, YG, Y#8, Orange and Red#23 for B&W, and may get a color film filter or two if I really go crazy (which I haven't yet). Have a collection of ND's and need to use them, but haven't yet.