Using graduated ND filters

click photos to enlarge

In the days of film photography I used a fairly wide selection of filters on my SLR camera lenses, and one or two on my rangefinder camera. I still have most of them, and several weeks ago I was looking at the collection, trying to decide which had a future and which I would be unlikely to ever use again.

I think its very doubtful that the red, yellow, orange and green filters that I used with black and white film will find a place in my future photography. The digital equivalent of these, applied to a colour image converted to monochrome in post-processing, seems to me to offer significant advantages over shooting in black and white with a filter on the lens. Nor too, I think, will the 49mm polarising filter be used again: my current lenses have much bigger filter sizes. I suppose, however, if I ever bought a compact system camera - M43, NX, NEX or somesuch, it might fit a lens. I also have a set of square filters of various kinds with a group of mounting filters, but once again these are of a size suitable for smaller diameter lenses. So, even though some of them, such as the neutral density filters, continue to have a very real purpose in these digital times, they are just too small for the lenses I currently use.

My attention had turned to filters because I was wanting to use a graduated neutral density filter to make better use of the sky in my images. It's true that with digital you can expose for the sky and then bring up the underexposed ground in post processing. But the fact is this takes time, effort and skill. Moreover, it's often the case that the dynamic range of the shot is too wide to do it completely successfully. The graduated neutral density filter tones down the brightness of the sky at the moment of capture and makes the details more as our eye sees them. It's especially useful, I find, on overcast days where the sky is white (but figured) and the ground dark and without obvious shadows. It is also useful when the camera is pointed anywhere near to the sun. Occasionally, however, this kind of filter does make too much of the sky's details and it can look a touch apocalyptic!

The upshot of all this is that a while ago I bought a 72mm mounting ring, filter holder and a square ND8 graduated neutral density filter. Fortunately the 24-105mm and the 17-40mm lens both have 72 mm filter threads, so the two lenses I own that are most suitable for this kind of filter can be accommodated by the single setup.

The photographs above were all taken on a rather overcast day using the filter. They show the late C15 (and later) Mannington Hall, a moated house in Norfolk. I may have been able to achieve the balance of the first image without the filter, and perhaps the second one too, but the third shot really benefited from it, acquiring a mood that would have been difficult to reproduce with a normal exposure and post-processing.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
Filter: Graduated ND8

Colour or black and white?

Click photos to enlarge
Many people question the relevance of black and white photographs in our world of colour. "What's the point?" they say. "We see in colour, we can print and view in colour, why do we continue with this limited palette that derives from old technology and the need for inexpensive reproduction?" It's not just the man in the street that holds this view, but many amateur photographers and quite a few enthusiasts and professionals. Of course, within photography we also have the contrarians who use nothing but black and white, seeing it as a "purer" form, untainted by the glitz of colour, and seduced by its association with "art photography" and some of the medium's masters.

I started my photography in the late 1960s when colour processing for home-produced snaps was widespread but black and white was still readily available as an option. I usually had my prints processed in black and white and when I wanted colour chose transparencies (slides). By the 1970s I was having mainly colour prints when I paid for processing, but I developed my own black and white shots and my own transparencies. Of all the images that I have from those years the black and white prints are the ones that have lasted best, followed by the transparencies (there's no difference between those that were commercially developed and the ones I did myself), with the colour prints a poor third. In fact, so concerned was I by the deterioration of the latter that I scanned them all several years ago in an attempt to keep something of their original qualities.

However, digital files in colour and black and white have equal longevity - and who knows how long that will be? - so that's not a reason for me continuing to convert shots to black and white. Why then do people do it? Well, some see it as the classic form of photography and others like its elegance. Some prefer its simplicity, and there's no denying that there are compositions that work in black and white that wouldn't in colour - often because a patch of a bright hue throws the shot out of balance, or clashes with another colour. Then there's the evocative nature of the medium; the way it can be used to cast the viewers mind back into a recent (or fairly remote) past. Many like the way it changes the emphasis of an image, concentrating our minds on the essentials of a portrait or an urban landscape. Then there's the drama that can be more easily realised through a monochrome photograph.

I often do a quick conversion of a colour shot that looks like it might have more potential in black and white. Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong, and other times I just can't make up my mind, which was the case with this image. It shows some houses in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire that date from about 1800. The terrace - called Union Place - forms one segment of part of a circular arrangement of houses that is bigger than a crescent but not quite a circus (both those words being used in the architectural sense). The shadows falling on the buildings from the circular garden that all the houses face adds drama to a shot that I thought would benefit from a black and white conversion (with the addition of the digital equivalent of a yellow filter). But, the complementary nature of the blue sky and orange/brown brickwork also has its attractions. So, as a departure from my usual practice I include both versions for your consideration. Which do you prefer?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Black and white filters

click photo to enlarge
When I got my first camera, way back in the late 1960s, I used to feed it with Agfa film (probably CT18) that I could have developed by the local photographic shop as colour transparency, colour negative or black and white. This was handy for creative purposes, but also because the cost of the final images was different depending on my choice, so I could tailor my photography to the state of my finances.

Later, in the 1970s, when I bought an SLR (a Zenit E followed by an OM1n), I shot all three film formats depending on my mood and the subjects I had in mind to photograph. Interestingly, of all the images I made during those years (and the 1980s and 1990s), it is the black and white prints (Ilford film on Ilford paper) that have stood the test of time best of all. Particularly, I'm proud to say, those that I developed and printed myself. Anyone who hasn't shot, developed and printed black and white film won't understand the special magic associated with that process. Nor will they appreciate the importance of filters in securing forceful images. I had (in fact still have) red, orange yellow and green filters to fit the Zuiko 50mm 1.8, and Cokin equivalents to fit all my lenses. The transformational effect of a red or orange filter on a blue sky with white, fair weather clouds, is sensational: on a stormy sky it is apocalyptic. These simple pieces of coloured glass gave a boost to contrast and added three-dimensional qualities that suited some subjects perfectly.

Every now and again I try the digital equivalent of the red, orange or yellow filter when I do a black and white conversion. I've never yet achieved quite the same effect that you get with glass and film, regardless of whether I use a plug-in or home-brew my own version. Today's image taken on Lincolnshire's Fens is close to what I used to like to achieve: a contrasty finish with black sky, white clouds and enough mid-tones to carry the detail. This tractor and harrow was waiting for the driver of the distant machine. He appeared to be working alone in the empty landscape, using both tractors with different attachments to prepare the soil as he wanted it.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On