Of course, this filter allows the transmission of green light. Well, not less useful, but perhaps not found as commonly in black and white photography as the other color filters I’ve mentioned. The next two filters are less useful for most shooters but still bear mentioning. A yellow filter is a good option for bringing out the contrasts of foliage and can also be a good choice for a general black and white photography filter when the orange filter is a bit too harsh. Yellow FilterĪ yellow color filter produces effects even less “in your face” than the orange filter. Orange filters are also great for reducing atmospheric haze and fog.
They darken blue skies and help to bring out the appearance of clouds.įor portraits, they work great for reducing skin blemishes like moles and freckles. Orange color filters are great “general purpose filters” for adding in contrast to your black and white photos. Taking it down a notch from the heavily-apparent effects of the red filter, the orange filter produce similar, yet subdued, contrasts to its red cousin. Some scenes can take on an almost infrared appearance. The red filter drastically reduces the transmission of blue wavelengths, thus darkening blue skies and making clouds pop. Notice the immediate darkening of the blue sky with the red filter Here’s the original color photo for reference: I’ve also listed a few quick scenarios that may help you choose a particular filter setting. I’ve used the same scene to show the varying effects of each filter. Have a look at some examples and each of these below. For instance, my 5D MKIII has no blue filter option. In most cases, your digital camera will have a set of digital color filters from which to choose: red, yellow, orange, green and blue. We’ve touched on a few of the circumstances where color black and white filters are best suited. The wonderful thing about digital black and white filters is that you can enjoy real-time feedback of the filter effects. Sure, you’re going to lose some post-processing leverage, but seeing that you can see the effects of your filter choices and you likely intend to end up with a black and white photo anyway, there’s not much reason to save the color information with a RAW file. I’m about to say something not usually encountered when it comes to digital photography these days – when using these digital black and white filters, it can be best to shoot JPEG…not RAW. In our example, I’ll be using a Canon 5D MKIII.
However, you may often find these filter options (if you have them) in the monochrome settings of your digital camera.
They could very well be slightly buried in your camera’s settings, but Canon, Nikon, Olympus, and Panasonic all offer models which sport built-in black and white color filters.Īs always, your camera user manual is your best friend. The cool thing is, many major camera manufacturers have seen fit to include digital amalgamations of these color filters. This means red filters allow red wavelengths to pass, blue allows blue, etc.
Real black and white color filters work to filter out other wavelengths of light that don’t fall into the color spectrum of the filter. I know, I was initially just as surprised as you are. Of course, this means carrying a set of filters with you constantly and also compensating for the slight reduction in light with adjustments to your exposures.īut what if I told you that your DSLR or MDC (mirrorless digital camera) most likely has all of the color filters you will need for outstanding black and white work right at your fingertips? This is why it’s so important to shoot digital black and white photos in RAW mode so that we can later manipulate these intact luminance values to control the contrasts within our digitally-converted black and white photos.Īll of this is based on the use of physical “color” lens filters, which filter out different wavelengths of light to produce varying contrast effects in black and white photography.Ī red filter produces dark, dramatic skies in landscape photos while orange filters can radically reduce the appearance of freckles and other skin blemishes in your portraits. With black and white photography, we might not see the saturation of colors the same way, but the luminance values of these colors remain the same whether we view them in color or black and white. Like all photographs, black and white images are made from light, and light consists of innumerable wavelengths that produce the colors we see with our eyes. When we think about black and white photographs, we generally associate them with an absence of color.