Dark Red Lens Filter and B & W Digital Photography Techn

[svetlo]

Does anyone make use of a Red Filter for B&W photography on their digital camera. Is it better to shoot in B&W mode on your camera with the red filter of color and then play with color channel in P Shop.

I am trying to get my mind around this and look forward to getting the best quality B&W pics with dramatic skies.

[ralph]

My suggestion is to try both ways to see which gives the best results. If you really want eye popping contrast in B&W, especially with sky and clouds, add a polarizing filter to the red filter. My current DSLR does not have a B&W mode but my first digital camera, a point and shoot model, did have the B&W mode which I used along with the polarizer and red filters. I got some amazing results

http://www.pbase.com/ralph

[madlights]

....I've got one coming from B+H in transit at this moment. Have been using a polarizer...but then if the angle to the sun is not quite right in wide angles...sometimes the sky is inconsistent (but dramatic) I've used the red a few times with film (couldn't find it and too small a mm anyway)...but never with digital. I know...everybody says shoot in color and process in PShop and do that all the time...but sometimes it's fun to try and do it the old way. One of my cameras has a pretty good native B&W mode.... It's really fun to experiment...I tried looking it up on a google, and strange how little info there really was from people who've tried it...if my search terms were relevant. (thanks too Ralph) Just got it #25 red...Here's one of my first ones with it...In camera B&W jpg. Even though I set my contrast very low in camera to keep from blowing hights...it seems you've got to adjust the contrast in Photo Shop alot to get anything.

I've been waiting to try it on a blue day with some puffy clouds....but it keeps raining...and the clouds keep rolling in. Edit: It seems the filter might be more useful on really bright sunny days...since it does take 2stops off. Also because of the way in which certain colors are restricted, it seems it throws the metering off a ways...although haven't used it enough to really determine how or working around that by compensating.