Exercise 28

What: The main brief of this exercise was to examine how colours and tones and affected when colour filters are used when photographing a subject in black and white
Where: At home in one single shoot.
When: In the afternoon, in a darkened room to allow the use of a soft box to provide uniform lighting.
How: A number of photographs were taken of a still life which contained a red, a green and a yellow object, these were set on a blue background and in one corner of the still life a neutral grey card was placed.

From previous reading I knew that the colours would become tones of greyscale and that the filters would have some form of affect on the exposure in black and white, also from the reading I knew to expect that the neutral grey card would not change tone in any way when compared between the “filtered” exposures.

I expected at the start of this exercise that certain objects within the composition would have an enhanced tone in black and white when certain filters were used. E.g. before the exercise I expected that the red chilli in the composition would have a better contrast and tone range when the red filter is used.
I was very surprised with the results when examining the tonal ranges and what I expected at the start in some cases (i.e. the red filter) was wrong.


Original Colour Shot

I included this colour shot as the starting reference point before I used Photoshop to convert the images to black and white and then applied the presets for each of the colour filters.

D80,Aperture f/29, Shutter Speed 1/160 sec, ISO 1000, 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens, Softbox flash mounted to the right and above of the camera.




Default Black and White

This is the same shot converted to black and white using the default preset filter within Photoshop, as expected the objects have been stripped of their colour and have been rendered in tones of black and white. As a starting point I quite like the range of tones of each object, no on object has a greater tonal range than the rest and all the detail can be clearly seen on the objects.

D80,Aperture f/29, Shutter Speed 1/160 sec, ISO 1000, 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens, Softbox flash mounted to the right and above of the camera.




Red Filter

When starting this exercise I had expected that the red chilli would have a deepened colour range and would have been a darker grey than the default preset. However when I applied the preset of the red filter, I was very surprised to see that the red chilli became almost white and pale and it did not differ in tone from the yellow banana. However some of the shadow and detailed ridges on the red chilli and the green pepper became more defined as they had better tone. The green pepper itself gained a little in tonal range and some of the detail on the pepper was better defined than other parts. I was surprised to find that the blue background darkened as much as it did.

D80,Aperture f/29, Shutter Speed 1/160 sec, ISO 1000, 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens, Softbox flash mounted to the right and above of the camera.



As surprised as I was, I learned a lot from this as it quickly changed my perception of the filters and how they worked when used in black and white.

Yellow Filter

Again I returned to the colour version and then using Photoshop I chose the Black and White conversion with the preset of a yellow filter. As with the red filter I found that the red chilli became very pale although it did gain a wide tonal range and the shadows and ridges on the chilli were well defined with this tonal range. This filter also brought out some of the finer detail in the green pepper but it was not as wide or as deep a tonal range as with the red filter.
In comparing the two I can see that the green pepper looses a little in the tonal range and definition and the red chilli gains some. The yellow banana was unchanged between these two filters and remained mainly white with some shadow and little detail, it was not as detailed nor did it have a wide tonal range as it did in the default settings.

D80,Aperture f/29, Shutter Speed 1/160 sec, ISO 1000, 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens, Softbox flash mounted to the right and above of the camera.



Green Filter

Again returning to the colour version using Photoshop I chose the Black and White conversion with the preset of a green filter; straight away I could see a difference in this filter as compared to the red and yellow filters. The red chilli moved into the middle of the full tonal range and became grey and very detailed it had both quite bright whites and dark greys. I could see comparing it to the default setting that this was quite close to the default for the red chilli, but the green pepper, the yellow banana and the blur background differed. The green pepper was a slightly paler grey and lighter in tone and it lost some of the finer detail on the surface, this loss of surface detail could also be seen on the yellow banana, there is little surface detail to be seen compared to the default and due to its limited tonal range it loses almost all of its shadow and definition as it is much brighter, it does gain a little tone compared to the red and green filters. The blue background lightened slightly compared to the red and yellow filters and the detail of the cloth became clearer through higher grain, comparing the backgrounds between the green filter and the default I can see that the background has darkened slightly in tone.


D80,Aperture f/29, Shutter Speed 1/160 sec, ISO 1000, 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens, Softbox flash mounted to the right and above of the camera.




Blue Filter

I repeated the same process again, choosing this time the blue preset filter in Photoshop. Straight away I could see the difference in this filter; both the green pepper and the red chilli became darker in tone and gained a wider tonal range. The contrast between the dark and white is surprising and very impressive to me. The tonal values on the red chilli and the green pepper were increased in range, both of the objects darkening and having a very wide tonal range, very dark blacks and very bright whites. Even the yellow banana darkened and the tonal range that it has shows up a lot of detail on the surface and comparing it to all the other black and white preset filters it appears to just have lost its yellow hue, the saturation and the brightness of the colour image have not been lost at all. I could see a lot of detail on all the objects that I could not see even on the colour version.

D80,Aperture f/29, Shutter Speed 1/160 sec, ISO 1000, 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens, Softbox flash mounted to the right and above of the camera.



In all of the black and white presets I could see one common object which did not change and that was the neutral grey card. It remained the same tonal value in all of the shots; the neutral grey I think must therefore be unaffected by the filters and is therefore truly “neutral”.

I am drawn to the green and the blue filters as they both appeal to me as they have a great deal of detail in their tone (although the blue background lost a little of its detail. Both the images from these filters remind me of the images of peppers by Edward Weston; his images of pepper and chillies is unsurpassed in their tonal values and I can now see how he may have achieved some of the detail and tone in these images.

I have learned a lot about the “conversion” of colour into tones in this exercise. Some of my preconceived ideas were shown to be wrong and these ideas have been corrected through this exercise, I am pleased to have learned a lot about black and white and how colour filters have an effect on the tonal range of an image. I have also learned that there is a neutral grey which is unaffected by these filters and that it remains the same no matter what.