Is a fluorescent filter worth using, and how and when?

Question

I bought a UV Filter that came with a Polarizing Filter and a Fluorescent Filter. While I understand the polarizing filter what is the point of a fluorescent filter? When I tried the filter under a fluorescent light it caused the photo to have a pink tint. (The filter itself is pink.)

Is this filter worth using? And when/how do you use it?

Asked by Lynda

Answer

Fluorescent filters are for "converting" fluorescent light to closer to daylight (FL-D) or tungsten (FL-W). Generally speaking, with a digital camera there's not much need for a FL-* filter since you can accomplish the same thing (and more) with your camera's white balance setting. Shooting with film you would want an FL-* or some kind of magenta filter, since you cannot modify the white balance of the film.

Answered by djangodude

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What are the uses of yellow, green, red, blue filters in black and white photography?

Question

Could someone explain the difference in using colored filters for black and white photos? What is the best practice using these filters for portraits, landscapes, macro? For different types of weather: sunny, foggy, morning, evening, and so on?

ADDED: (useful links)

Photo Filters for Black and White Photography

Yellow Filter x Orange Filter x Red Filter x Green Filter x Blue Filter

Asked by garik

Answer

If you are using a digital camera, there is little need to use colored filters, as you can apply their effects in post processing when you do the black and white conversion.

See Are there reasons to use colour filters with digital cameras?

Also How can using a color filter help to improve a black and white photo?

If you are shooting film, then

• Red is commonly used in landscapes. It will darken foilage, and will dramatically increase the constrast in cloudy skies. It will lighten skin if used in portraiture.
• Orange behaves like red, but effects are less.
• Yellow has a subtle effect - will darken skin slightly.
• Green will lighten foilage. It can be used in portraits to darken the skin
• Blue will lighten skies, and lower contrast if you want a hazy effect

Answered by MikeW

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What is the difference between using colored filters and converting color photos to black and white programmatically?

Question

Does it make sense to use filters for black and white photography, as opposed to using software to convert photos? As I understand it, photos that have been made in a natural way (using filters) are more highly regarded than ones converted in software? What can I do by using filters, and what can I not do by using a software converter?

Asked by garik

Answer

Photos made "in the natural way" may be more highly regarded by some, but that alone is no reason to go out and buy a set of filters. There some genuine advantages to working this way, however.

For example filtering the light before it enters the camera can prevent overexposure (and hence loss of detail) of one ore more colour channels. This can be important if a scene is dominated by one colour of light that you want to filter out, you could do it in post but to gain the correct exposure for the other channels you might end up massively overexposing one channel which can result in flare, loss of contrast, or sensor bloom.

Answered by Matt Grum

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How do I adjust the color Balance on a Nikon D300?

Question

First of all let me clarify here. I am aware of the color balance feature on the Nikon D300 and I generally use Auto, so this isn't about that aspect of color balance.

My camera has a tendency to shoot a little magenta and I am wondering if there is a way to modify that in the control panel. If not, I can accept a no, but it would be nice to not have to continually adjust all my photos.

Thanks.

Answer

Since you shoot RAW. Color-balance has no effect on your photos. If they come out the wrong color, blame the RAW processor or its operator ;)

To adjust color-balance of the preview along the Green-Magenta axis go to the camera menu and find the WB Fine-Tuning screen.

To adjust it along the Amber-Blue axis, hold the WB button and turn the sub-command dial (usually the front control-dial but they can be swapped).

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Are there reasons to use colour filters with digital cameras?

Question

Digital photos can have colour filters applied after the fact by software, so are there any good reasons to use colour filters with a digital camera? As I understand it, the main reason for them originally was for effects with black and white film, but now even black and white is a post-processing effect.

I know that UV filters are good for lens protection, and that ND filters allow you to use longer exposures, but what use are colour filters?

Answer

There's a difference between color and color correction filters although they both are colored.

Color correction filters are useful in digital photography to get more even exposure in all channels under some special types of lightning.

For example you'd probably get more exposure and thus less noise in blue channel if you used blue color correction filter (82A/B/C) under tungsten lightning. It should be noted that these filters have filter factor, meaning one stop gain in noise could mean lost stop in terms of exposure time.

Underwater photography is another domain where light is tricky and physical filters are suggested, mostly warming, but fluorescent-correction filters may also apply.

In this example two pictures were made in the same conditions under tungsten lightning (street light in winter), the first one shows blue channel from picture without any filtration and the second one blue channel from picture with fairly weak 80D filter. Note the differences in noise. It's important to mention that the white balance reference for both shots was taken from gray card and the blue channel shows more noise in unfiltered case because the blue channel got more amplified in that case.

The usual color filters for BW film are not very useful in digital world as these can easily result overexposure in one channel and leave the other underexposed and noisy. Putting a strong color filter in front of your lens means that you are using your digital camera inefficiently, as for example in case of red/blue filter, you're using just 25% of your available pixels and 50% in case of green.

The list of filters with their Wratten number and description can be found from Wikipedia article.

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