#23/25 Red filters for B&W video

[RobMNeilson]

SO it's been decades since I've shot B&W film with a red filter to get those deep blacks. For an upcoming shoot I've been able to talk a local company into letting me shoot their promo as a film noir (in return for doing it for a miniscule budget). We'll be shooting RED, and my local rental house has #23A & #25 red filters in 138mm. Is this still the best methodolgy for getting deep blacks in the digital world?

We'll have a pretty small lighting package, but house power, a 6500w genny, and a 2000w put put...so we'll be bringing on some tungsten to shoot it. We'll have 1x 5k, 2x 2k, 4-5 1k, and then a collection of 650/300/200w lights. I'm hoping to be shooting around a 2.8 with the camera ISO at 640/800 to compensate for the light loss of the filter. Fairly simple scene that will be played as a mafia interrogation.

Has anyone shot with red (or orange/yellow/green) for B&W video recently?

 

[Nick Morrison]

No do not use a RED filter - that's for film (and maybe actual monochrome cameras?)

Your shooting on a color RGB CMOS sensor, and adding a RED filter will just starve your red channel (and introduce noise).

Just shoot it normal, add contrast, and monitor with saturation at ZERO.

 

[Andreas Mendritzki]

No do not use a RED filter - that's for film (and maybe actual monochrome cameras?)

Your shooting on a color RGB CMOS sensor, and adding a RED filter will just starve your red channel (and introduce noise).

Just shoot it normal, add contrast, and monitor with saturation at ZERO.

Exactly. If you're de-saturating don't use colour filters. If you're shooting with the incredibly awesome and amazing RED monochrome - then yes! go for it! It works just like it did on b&w film

 

[RobMNeilson]

Ah, that makes perfect sense! Thank you.