Filters

[Uneducated_Rick]

This isn't another Lee vs Cokin vs Hitech but instead a film vs digital.

Having read Lee Frost's book on filters it left me with several queeries about the implications of the digital age.

Lee often uses warm up and cool down filters to compensatet for colour temperature being different from what film 'expects'. Does setting a custom white balance totally eradicate the need for warm up and cool down filters, or does it help but not be 100%?

Also when using colour conversion filters for black and white photography with digital is it worth getting coloured filters or just altering colour chanels in PP?

I'm thinking more and more of getting a medium format camera to try out, would it be worth me practicing on digital the techniques I'd use for film - getting the filters and doing it 'old school' rather than relying on technology to correct it for me? Should I try and do it both with filters and in PP to see which looks better?

 

[dalex_257]

Lee often uses warm up and cool down filters to compensatet for colour temperature being different from what film 'expects'. Does setting a custom white balance totally eradicate the need for warm up and cool down filters, or does it help but not be 100%?

This is an interesting question and till recently I'd have said that editing WB postfactum on RAW eradicate the use of those filters. But... having recently read some interesting discussions on Dpreview on this very subject it appears that it actually does have a benefits of using those filters in digital. The guy called Iliah Borg (one of the authors of the RawMagick Lite raw converter) had a few discussions on Dpreview where he stated that apparently you can get better quality capture using some colour correction filters (i.e. less noise in certain channels like blue which is the weakest one).

I can try to dig on of these threads out and post reference here if you interested.

 

[puddleduck]

You can definately get better IQ with correct use of a filter, then messing with WB later.

I like an 81a warming filter - you can't quite replicate that with a WB adjustment.