[Simian Summit]

The other day I was looking through some filter information and came by the 8x series of filters for white balance correction. Does anyone use these? Or does it actually matter when shooting negative film (because of the corrections during printing)? And the big question...If using these filters would make my life easier/improve my photographs how do I know whether my film is daylight/tungsten/flash/etc balanced?

[elho_cid]

Well sometimes I use them with digital as well. There is a nice downloadable pdf guide to these filters on B+W site.
They eat up some light but with tripod it doesn't matter. Result is usually far better (even on digital, the DR, contrast and details improve with filter corrected WB)

[gofour3]

The other day I was looking through some filter information and came by the 8x series of filters for white balance correction. Does anyone use these? Or does it actually matter when shooting negative film (because of the corrections during printing)? And the big question...If using these filters would make my life easier/improve my photographs how do I know whether my film is daylight/tungsten/flash/etc balanced?

I carry the B+W KB20 filter in my kit when I travel, incase I have to shoot indoors under incandescent lighting and can’t use a flash. There are different filters for the various types of indoor lighting.

There’s not much Tungsten film around these days, so what you are shooting will be daylight film. If you shoot indoors under florescent/incandescent/halogen lighting the colour temp will be different than your film and you will get a yellow cast to your pictures.

Or you can shoot b& w film and not have to worry about colour temps.

Phil.

[titrisol]

Actually yes, I keep a light blue filter (tungsten light) and a light purple filter (CFL correction) in my bag for whe I shoot under those lights

Film does not offer the auto-white-balance so the correcton filters are a blessing.

Now if there was only one for those new horrible daylight balanced fluorescents!

[Simian Summit]

Thank-you everyone for chiming in on this. I think that your experience will be a big help to me.

To elho cid...I think that your idea of using the filters on your digital camera is interesting. Do you know how the colours are normally balanced, and to do this do you have to shoot raw?

Thanks again everyone

[Spare Tire]

It's true C-41 needs to be color-corrected in post anyways so i just shoot it as is to get as much light as possible. With B&W and E-6 you don't have a choice, and E-6 is really picky too. Cheap cokin filters always had color casts for me.

Or you can shoot b& w film and not have to worry about colour temps.

Yet everyone shoots B&W with filters. It's the equivalent of channel mixing for digital folks.

Well sometimes I use them with digital as well. There is a nice downloadable pdf guide to these filters on B+W site.
They eat up some light but with tripod it doesn't matter. Result is usually far better (even on digital, the DR, contrast and details improve with filter corrected WB)

I don't understand why they would improve contrast, detail, or dynamic range. Sounds like marketting BS from filter manufacturers.

[Wheatfield]

It's true C-41 needs to be color-corrected in post anyways so i just shoot it as is to get as much light as possible. With B&W and E-6 you don't have a choice, and E-6 is really picky too. Cheap cokin filters always had color casts for me.


Yet everyone shoots B&W with filters. It's the equivalent of channel mixing for digital folks.


I don't understand why they would improve contrast, detail, or dynamic range. Sounds like marketting BS from filter manufacturers.

Take some time to educate yourself on what filters do with B&W film.

[Spare Tire]

Take some time to educate yourself on what filters do with B&W film.

>implying filters on B&W film is not like channel mixing
mfw

[Wheatfield]

>implying filters on B&W film is not like channel mixing
mfw

You have it surrounded, Mr. Morden.