Shooting B&W on RED. with Yellow , Red and Green Filters

[Vigen Vartanov]

Good day , i am planing to shoot B&W commercial . And planing to do it
on RED , with using all B&W filters . Like Yellow , RED , Green , Orange .
For my test making B&W picture only in production , result is not sow cool , or may
be i am bad colorist . Sow my try is to shoot classic B&W don not
and don not thing about that my camera is B&W .
My question is will i get problem with special color filters that i am
planing to use , and filter give me an same result.
And also about White Balance on camera , how you thing what balance
will be best for final b&w result ? 5000 ? .

Shooting on B&W film+filters VS Shooting on RED with filters . Will i
get same result ?
Thanks.

 

[LEON]

Good day , i am planing to shoot B&W commercial .
Thanks.

Why don't you shoot color and transform to B and W at post production time, selecting the exact amount of R, B, G filtration you like ?

Easier, more precise and re-doable as much as you want ?

 

[Harry Clark]

Hi there...
I've done this experiment. It does make a difference to use them in camera if the color palette of your subject is strongly affected by the B&W filter of choice AND has a wide variation of exposure, or there are details that the filter brings out that will not otherwise appear.
For example, a red filter on a blue sky with clouds will yield a black sky with stark white clouds. We all know that. But since the Red had limited high exposure range, you can REALLY deepen the sky with a camera filter and retain more detail than if you were doing it in post.
Go ahead, try it. It DOES matter.
Green filter on skin? STRIKING change, bringing out pores and blemishes and wrinkles. We've all seen this too. Guess what? Works better with a filter than it does in post.
But as others have said, it's baked in so you are making an unalterable choice.
Cheers,
Harry

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I recall an old thread on CML or something where someone tested using b&w filters on color negative film versus playing with the RGB channels individually to affect tonal reproduction of objects in the final b&w image, and they got better results with unfiltered color photography and then playing with the RGB channels before converting to b&w. For example, in the red channel, blue objects like the sky would be lower in luminance and red objects would be lighter.

Heavy filtering actually got worse results because you no longer had good color information to separate and adjust.

Also, with a camera like the RED, which has a poor sensitivity to blue, the last thing I'd do is use heavy red or orange filters.

At least, this is what this guy's tests showed. Maybe it's somewhere on the internet.

 

[Harry Clark]

But keep in mind, in-camera color manipulation in an imaging system with limited dynamic range can be very effective.
For example, on a day exterior with wide exposure variation, you may be forced to overexpose the blue sky, losing color and therefore information for secondary or power window correction. The red filter would bring down the exposure of the blue channel and give you more information to work with.
Not saying that you are wrong David, especially in regards to photochemical. I remember trying the experiment on ECN 5247 years ago with mediocre results (also in the days of Rank/ early DaVinci, so limited tweaking there anyway)
But I saw it with my own eyes in a Scratch suite with r3D.
I'll contact Gary at IKA in New York and see if he still has the side-by-side files, but I doubt it... if I can find the files I will post.
Vigen, I would suggest a test.
Cheers,
Harry

 

[Vigen Vartanov]

Yes test is only one way to answer my question Problem is that i have no b&w filters , and can not rental it in my region .
I was looking for this filters in ex USSR studios in Georgia , but all
old filters are damaged .
Your answers will help me to make decision buy it or not . Because i
don not want to spend 2000 USD for filters , and then never use it .
Because shooting with solid Red or Green or etc filter when final out is Color is not necessary in Digital Intemedia world .
May be some body can help me with shooting this tests , or even rental
filters for me for super price .

Thanks.

 

[Vigen Vartanov]

But keep in mind, in-camera color manipulation in an imaging system with limited dynamic range can be very effective.
For example, on a day exterior with wide exposure variation, you may be forced to overexpose the blue sky, losing color and therefore information for secondary or power window correction. The red filter would bring down the exposure of the blue channel and give you more information to work with.

Thanks for detail answer harry .
Many people things that CC can do everything , but you can not apply
RED ,Yellow and etc filter in Correction when your sky is
overexposure . You can say put
Grad ND , but in B&W world better to put Red Grad , or Yellow Grad and
you will get better result .

 

[David Mullen ASC]

You may want to read this:
http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/just-say-no-in-camera-black-and-white.html

Basically your digital sensor is already filtering for red, green, and blue information, so adding a heavy colored filter is just robbing information from the other two colors.

As for exposure, you can control the overall exposure to record detail in bright skies versus dark shadows (and red-filtered b&w photography tends to have very dark shadows because outdoors, the shadows are often filled-in with skylight, which has a lot of blue in it.)

Yes, using grads and Polas will help control bright skies and are very useful filters in digital photography, but the issue is whether color filters (not grads or Polas) help all that much for turning a color image to b&w when you have control in post playing with the RGB channels.

 

[Vigen Vartanov]

Thanks . It helps me Now it looks like that you need to make right CC for B&W.

 

[Michael Stanmore]

This is interesting, good luck Vigen. Now I think I'll be testing this out next time I'm out and about with my Red.

 

[Harry Clark]

David,
I defer to you, of course. However, I did see a difference with my own eyes!
Cheers,
Harry

 

[RikiButland]

Yes Harry we are all sure you saw a difference but did you compare it with David's way and play with the RGB channels, you will then see a very BIG difference that is infinitely adjustable, honestly give it a try and then compare you will not be disapointed.

 

[Harry Clark]

Yes, that is in fact what I meant. I shot a test, with and without, and the use of B&W filters improved the result.
Cheers,
Harry