Shooting black and white...

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PopCultureFanboy

Active member
Hi, I just had a few questions about shooting for black and white. I am shooting on the t2i and read somewhere that Orson Welles advised Peter Bogdonavich to use a red filter to heighten contrast in the film, "Paper Moon." I wanted to try something like this but upon putting a red rosco gel over my lens and post-converting to black and white, it seemed to have less contrast and a slight haziness to it.

I was also thinking of using a soft type filter to balance the amount of hard light that will be used. Any thoughts on any of this or any general tips for shooting in black and white/shooting to convert to black and white?
 
If you shoot in colour and then do post black and white conversion, you'll have a lot of options open, especially how you deal with colour channels and how they affect the image. If you can get a great look in camera, using orange and red filters and you don't mind making the descision that early, then it could be fun. If it is super critical, then it's probably wiser to shoot colour, monitor in black and white and keep all your options open.
 
A red filter takes out blue .. so is typically used for filmng fluffy clouds and blue skies .. makes great contrast becuse the blue goes very dark (being filtered out by the red)

You would not use a red filter in all situations

Eg using a blue filter is great for 'old men' because skin imperfections (being dark red) are heightened coming out almost black (the blue filter took out the red in the skin)

As for doing it in post I cant comment, have not done any B+W since I had a darkroom and shot on Tmax :)

I would imagine that skillful use of filters during recording (not post) can bring better results if you know what you are doing

S
 
I wouldn't risk shooting in B/W unless you were very experienced with it already and knew what you were going to get. As long as your image is properly exposed, there are thousands of options in post.
 
The red filter (#25) is generally for outdoor use to add extreme contrast between clouds and sky, or sometimes to deepen textures in architectural photography. The effect on skin tones is unflattering. It's too strong to use on faces and normal scenes, and eats so much light (around 3 stops) that it's next to useless indoors anyway. I'm not certain where they would have used one in "Paper Moon," but I would guess it was for wide scenic shots with a lot of sky in them, not where you're too close to the actors.

An orange filter (#21) is often used for somewhat less contrast enhancement outdoors.

Yellow (#8) is even weaker -- but a lot of B&W photographers use one almost all the time, especially outdoors. By absorbing blue, it can subtly darken the sky and water in a way that looks natural while enhancing contrast. Unlike the red and orange, this one can work OK with skin tones (lightening them somewhat).

None of these are really great or necessary choices when working indoors under tungsten lights. And to keep your options open, you can simulate all of them in post if you shoot in color originally.

It doesn't surprise me that a red gel softened your image. Gels made to be used over lights are not nearly good enough optically to go directly in the image path.

- Greg
 
PopCultureFanboy said:
Hi, I just had a few questions about shooting for black and white. I am shooting on the t2i and read somewhere that Orson Welles advised Peter Bogdonavich to use a red filter to heighten contrast in the film, "Paper Moon." I wanted to try something like this but upon putting a red rosco gel over my lens and post-converting to black and white, it seemed to have less contrast and a slight haziness to it.

I was also thinking of using a soft type filter to balance the amount of hard light that will be used. Any thoughts on any of this or any general tips for shooting in black and white/shooting to convert to black and white?
Click to expand...

My philosophy is to get the capture as 'high a quality as possible', then in post add filters, monochrome, whatever. While there are a few effects that may be 'better' done in camera, most of the time using the effects in post processing allows for far more control of the image.

In the case of "monochrome'... aka B&W, I recommend using the Channel Mixer type filter, available in Premiere, After Effects and Final Cut Pro 7 (don't know about X... maybe that's too sophisticated for the casual user...).

For obtain B&W filter type effects, a Wratten 25 (red) can be post processed by turning down the blue. (For filtering out actual UV spectrum, probably this is a good place for an actual optical filter, rather than post... but for a red filter... adjusting the blue channel down will allow for more control.).

You can look up other optical filters and their 'post' equivalents...

For 'haze' filter, there are combo things that can be done. Again I tend not to put nose grease, petroleum jelly, or parish the thought buy a 'haze' filter. But rather would do that in post with selective bluring image regions. Again a matter of control, and being able to 'back out' an effect that doesn't work.

The problem with B&W is that these days fewer and fewer people really have worked with actual B&W negative film, especially in moving picture negative film, and so, often the 'look' that is achieved is definitely 'monochrome', but lacks 'something'... usually contrast or the like, as well as the shot having 'different colored' areas, which map to the same grey value... A Wratten 90 filter was used in the olden days to give the photographer a 'hint' of the monochrome scene, and adjust as required to have a will light, and sufficient contrast in the scene for good composition.
 
Greg Smith said:
It doesn't surprise me that a red gel softened your image. Gels made to be used over lights are not nearly good enough optically to go directly in the image path.

- Greg
Click to expand...

There are gelatin filters for use in the optical path... very thin...For example the Wratten 25 found here at B&H

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/503645-REG/Kodak_8424988_3_x_3_25.html

Is $27.95 cheap...

One also needs a holder in front of the lens... but since lots of people use matte boxes, do they have a filter holder built in?

The only time I used a #25 was for those Ansel Adams style scenics... Since Tungsten has a predominance of 'red'... using a #25 with Tungsten seems counter productive...

#25 can also be used for Infrared photography, but does let 'visible red' through... and one would have to remove the IR filter in the camera to get the full benefit of IR photography with
digital cameras... and use filters with a sharper cut off that eliminates visible light...
 
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I have quite a bit of experience shooting Black and White in my last film (quite a couple of scenes were shot in B/W for narrative purposes). In any case, what I learnt was that if you grade to Black and White in post (push the contrast for a more film-noir look, etc, etc) the H.264 artifacts show up with a vengeance. So it's best to set up a nice picture profile in the t2i specially for black and white (modify the standard B/W Canon gives as to suit your needs) - this also carries the advantage that you can monitor in B/W. Of course with this you will need to hit your exposure right on - but it's all worth it later.
 
PopCultureFanboy said:
...Orson Welles advised Peter Bogdonavich to use a red filter to heighten contrast in the film, "Paper Moon."
Click to expand...

Bogdonavich was capturing to film -- B&W film. B&W film doesn't have the same sensitometric response as a digital sensor. It's a different animal in a number of ways.

A red filter (indeed, pretty much all optical filters for photography) are low pass filters. That is, they block high frequencies and pass low frequencies. So a red filter passes red, but blocks blue (and to a lesser extent green, and an even lesser extent yellow). Clearly, if the scene has a lot of blue (like blue sky), the blue light is blocked and therefore those tones render as darker gray. That's all that happens.

If your scene has a blue sky with fluffy white clouds, a red filter will leave the clouds as they are and darken the blue sky, thus increasing contrast. If you shoot the same scene but on a full overcast day, there's little blue light to darken so you don't see an increase in contrast.

So don't think of a red filter as "increasing contrast" because it only does that under certain conditions. Think of it instead as a "minus blue" effect.

All that said, unless you are shooting to film, don't shoot through a filter -- color grade it in post instead. And if you just have to shoot through a filter, use an optical quality filter designed for the task (multi coated, etc.) as opposed to a lighting gel. Just sayin'.
 
Shooting in colour and post production processing is definitely the way to go. I have lots of experience doing this, and it works brilliantly, but requires rendering of course. The level of image control is the key.
 
Lucas Adamson said:
Shooting in colour and post production processing is definitely the way to go. I have lots of experience doing this, and it works brilliantly, but requires rendering of course. The level of image control is the key.
Click to expand...

The question is: Do you have lots of experience doing this with Canon's badly compressed H.264 codec?
 
kylevant said:
The question is: Do you have lots of experience doing this with Canon's badly compressed H.264 codec?
Click to expand...

No, thankfully. 16mm film, DVX100b, GH1 are the cameras I've shot colour for B&W on. The hacked GH1 results were particularly sublime, especially at low ISO.
 
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