Shooting with filters explained.

Long ago, before Photo Editing and Computers a great innovation came along called Panchromatic Film. Panchromatic film rendered the image more like the eye sees things, only in Black and White of course. Today most BW films on the market today are Panchromatic and as most of us now it is very sensitive to Blue light and less sensitive to Red and Green. This is why when you take an unfiltered photo of a blue sky it comes out white. When printing on regular paper any difference between the clouds and sky is normally lost. With scanning of negatives you can regain some of that detail, but for really dramatic skies the use of a filter can make a landscape really dramatic.

When using filters you have to have an idea of what is going to happen to your image for predictable results. Exposure is a little trickier too because you have to factor in that the use of a filter changes the amount of exposure time or aperture required to make the exposure. Before modern in camera light meters become the norm you had to calculate this by “the filter factor”. There is a ton of technical information involved and that’s really outside the scope of this article, so I won’t go into it. The information is widely available on line. Wiki has a good chart that converts your filter factor to Stops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_factor

For a better demonstration of the use of filters and their effects on colors check out Trash-Stars photo on flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/livingbraindonor/4237077008/

Like anything over using filters for special effects can be overdone, but used for a desired effect it can bring a new dimension to your work. Ansel Adams was a master at filters and was open about using them to achieve his vision of an image even if that image didn’t exactly give a true representation of what you might have seen had you been standing next to him when the photo was shot.

Thanks to digital photo editing and the decline of true Black and White film photography filters, especially in common sizes have gotten really inexpensive. If you’ve only used the yellow filter that came with your old Pentax k1000 you bought off eBay you should be able to have a lot of fun learning to master a new tool for your kit. Filters aren’t just for landscape photography, either. Filters can enhance or change someone’s appearance, diminish skin flaws and bring life to a portrait.

Despite my best efforts content on the blog has been lacking, sorry!

SO it’s been a while since I or any of the team have posted, very sorry about that. Truth is photography has taken a back seat to other priorities in life. I’m sure you can all relate, sometimes there’s just not enough time to get everything done in a week and before you know it months have passed by. Some predicted it, it’s common in blogs. You start them up, they go great and then they fizzle out. I’m still committed to the blog and will continue to write articles but I can’t make any promises about the frequency of them at this time.

With the holidays rapidly approaching are you asking for anything film related for the holidays?

Black and White Photo of the Week

365 on film 2011 06 22 – #151, a photo by DavyRocket on Flickr.

We may have to go monthly! We’ve been slacking on the FOTW feature here. Sorry!

Photographic Projects – Kodak No. 9

We have some great people in the bwfp flickr group and they certainly came up trumps when asked about their photography projects. The plan is to feature the some of projects that were put forward.

The first one is called Kodak No.9 and the projects creator Mike N Dawn’s Photography has given us kind permission to share it here.

This what they had to say about it -

“It was definitely an eye opener. My wife worked there back in 2003 through to 2005, shortly before it started to pack up and close. In 2005, Kodak announced they would be closing the doors to Kodak Heights for good, as it was outsourcing the work over seas, and on the other side of the country. I believe it was a cost cutting measure, but sadly it also meant the loss of more then 800 jobs.

In the late 70s, Kodak Heights employed nearly 5000 employees, and was one of the main chemical manufacturing plants in North America. Nahanni Whiskey, and he can attest to this, was one of the many that would drop off his Kodachrome films for processing at this very building. The Kodak #9 building was the office, and film processing facility, where as the outlying buildings, now nothing more then piles of gravel today, were the main chemical plants.

They were also one of the main suppliers of B&W Photo paper, both Kodak, and even ILFORD branded paper. (My wife worked in the B&W Photo paper packing centre).

It was quite the site to see late at night, the lights blazing, trucks entering and exiting at all hours. From flatbeds to tankers and other various delivery trucks.

The day the plant closed, it was like the place had turned into a ghost town, for it was pretty much a town in its hayday! The lights were out, and the roads were and land was forever silenced. Like a blot in the city, where light once shone like a photographic beacon, it is now an eerie place to look at. The remaining #9 building, scheduled for future development and restored, is now a destination for firebugs (as it has been torched repeatedly), vandals, local graffiti artists, and Urban Archeological photographers, myself included. Like a skeleton sentinel, standing and watching over, silently, the lands that once were bustling. Now looking like a graveyard… overgrown with weeds, and pitted with holes, like open tombs, from the excavation of the old chemical tanks. The guard booth is now a burned and collapsed wreck.

This adventure into the life of what once was a photographic giant, was both insightful and eye opening, and sadly depressing.

I do have one more set of images left to do here. I need to reunite my Kodak Duaflex IV with the land that gave birth to it.”

To see more of the project then follow this link to Mike N Dawn’s page on flickr

Winter is coming

While it’s still the early stage of fall where I live for our friends in the North winter is already well on it’s way.  Hope you were able to get some nice fall colors with your slide film when it was at it’s peak!  For me when winter arrives it’s time to focus on black and white photography.  I shoot black and white year round but I find that the funnest and most challenging time to shoot landscape photography is in the winter.  Something about the starkness of trees that have lost most of their leaves, snow on the ground and ice on the ponds and lakes makes for really interesting photography.  Plus it gives me an excuse to get out of the house on otherwise cold and dreary days.

Winter photography has it’s own set of unique challenges.  White snow against dark trees makes for a high contrast scene.  You want to keep you snow white but you don’t want to loose the detail of the texture in most cases, and you also may want to keep some detail in the trees if you can help it.  If you meter snow and over expose by 2 stops you will get white snow but often times the overexposure will make for very high contrast.  When printing this loss of detail can be catastrophic to your image if not handled correctly, which takes a lot of work.  Scanning gives you more control as long as the information was captured on the negative, but it may not be as visually appealing as the scene looked to the human eye when captured.

So what are the tricks of the trade for those fantastic winter photos taken by the masters?  Well one method which seems to be effective is larger format film in slower ISO’s than most of us work with.  Medium format negatives are a big improvement over 35MM in landscape because of the larger surface area.  With more surface area to work with tonal graduations are more gradual.  Slower film captures more detail so break out that tri-pod.   Careful consideration to your metering is also paramount.  If you use the in camera or handheld meter’s recommendation without regard to your scene more than likely you will not get the image your after unless you happen to get lucky.  Like most of you I can’t afford a fancy spot meter.  I do own an inexpensive 300mm zoom lens camera that fits my very affordable EOS 35mm camera with state of the art (in the film era anyway) metering.  Instant spot meter.  It doesn’t weigh much and it’s a nice kit for taking pictures of detailed smaller objects that normally get lost in a landscape as well.

Lastly a bit about your kit in winter.  If you have a camera or other gear that relies on batteries bring spare batteries when you’re in near freezing or below temperatures.  Keep them in a pants pocket or somewhere they will stay warm.  Batteries do not always work well in the cold.  It’s a good idea to bring gloves and water.  Even though it’s cold your body can still dehydrate while out hiking.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing Wolfgang Moersch’s photostream on on Flickr you might have seen some of his winter work done with his Blad and Holga.  Wolfgang Moersch is a master printer and has been at this for a while which is evident by the images he produces.   If you’ve never seen his work go check it out, it’s simply amazing.

Untitled

Untitled by Kiran Bhat on flickr

BWFPPOW

happy halloween!

scan0001, a photo by rebeca_filgueira on Flickr.

Step by step (06.2009)

Step by step (06.2009), a photo by zgodzinski on Flickr.

BWFPOTW

You’re my boy, Blue…

…, a photo by Pawel Maciejewski on Flickr.

BWFPOTW