Filters, Filters, Filters!

A photographer friend and I were talking recently about how and why we use filters on the lenses of our cameras. The discussion centered around clear “lens protector” filters, but in that same group of filters are “UV haze” filters, and “skylight” filters.

I am not a collector by nature, but photographic filters seem to find their way to me. Many of these filters came from camera bags that were given to me or sold in estate and garage sales in "grab bag" fashion.
I am not a collector by nature, but photographic filters seem to find their way to me. Many of these filters came from camera bags that were given to me or sold in estate and garage sales in “grab bag” fashion.

They all do essentially the same thing to your images: nothing. Many photographers use them to keep rain, smoke, dust, and their own clumsy finger off the front elements of their lenses.

In the film era, the thinking was that ultraviolet light in the atmosphere would be a problem because it would contaminate our images. The answer was the UV (ultra-violet) filter, sometimes with the word “haze” added because it would supposedly reduce the appearance of haze in the distance, since haze tends to be in the blue to ultra-violet portion of the spectrum. If you look closely, you will see this filter is very faintly yellow.

I have a few more than a few UV-haze and skylight filters in my collections. They seem to accumulate more than anything else.
I have a few more than a few UV-haze and skylight filters in my collections. They seem to accumulate more than anything else.

Likewise, a lot of film photographers, including me, used a “skylight” filter on their lenses, since magazines like Modern Photography and Popular Photography told us to. This filter appears very faintly pink if you look through it.

Those filters were intended for use primarily for color photography, but we almost always left them on our lenses when we shot in black-and-white. The exposure penalty is negligible, as is any noticeable tonal rendition.

Other filters for color film photography included color correction filters for use with daylight-balanced film in incandescent or fluorescent light, or to fine-tune color balance in a studio setting.

Here are three "graduated" filters, part of a kit that screws onto the front of a lens, letting you drop in filters like this, and rotate them to change where to effect is strongest.
Here are three “graduated” filters, part of a kit that screws onto the front of a lens, letting you drop in filters like this, and rotate them to change where to effect is strongest.

A popular filter paradigm in the late-1970s was the “graduated neutral density filter,” so named because they gradually got lighter or darker across the image area. You could get these filters in colors, too, so your image would be unchanged at the bottom of a frame, for example, and blue or brown or red toward the top of the frame. Watch the intro the the movie Top Gun, the jets on the carrier scenes, and you will see that they used exactly that to created those sunsetty-looking shots.

Here is the kind of effect you can expect to get if you use graduated filters.
Here is the kind of effect you can expect to get if you use graduated filters.

Like a lot of trends, this kind of filter system experienced a flash of popularity which waned quickly, but stuck around at a low level, and once in a while you can see these filters in use, especially with nature photographers.

Here is a spectrum of filters for black-and-white films. Filters like these have mostly been orphaned by software like Photoshop, and "film look" in-camera settings.
Here is a spectrum of filters for black-and-white films. Filters like these have mostly been orphaned by software like Photoshop, and “film look” in-camera settings.

My favorite kinds of photographic filters are for black-and-white photography, although I didn’t get to use them very often. Their impacts on images could be dramatic. Red and orange filters would block blues and greens, creating deep, dark skies and cutting haze, while yellow and green filters tended to help black-and-white films respond more realistically. Blue filters, thought seldom used, darkened red and yellow areas, and lightened blues.

I only made a handful of really successful black-and-white medium-format images in my day. This is probably my favorite. It depicts a clearing summer thunderstorm over the Pecos River in northern New Mexico. I shot it with my Fujifilm GW670 III using Kodak Verichrome Pan Film, with a deep orange filter on the lens. The filter helped create the deep skies and shadows.
I only made a handful of really successful black-and-white medium-format images in my day. This is probably my favorite. It depicts a clearing summer thunderstorm over the Pecos River in northern New Mexico. I shot it with my Fujifilm GW670 III using Kodak Verichrome Pan Film, with a deep orange filter on the lens. The filter helped create the deep skies and shadows.
This view from the top of the Capulin Volcano in northeastern New Mexico emphasizes the beauty of the high-desert sky. Made with my Fuji 6x7 loaded with Kodak Verichrome Pam Film, I filtered the lens with a deep orange filter.
This view from the top of the Capulin Volcano in northeastern New Mexico emphasizes the beauty of the high-desert sky. Made with my Fuji 6×7 loaded with Kodak Verichrome Pam Film, I filtered the lens with a deep orange filter.

Finally, there are polarizers, but I promise to cover those in another article.

The golden age of filters is gone, mostly because of editing software like Photoshop, which can accomplish most types of filtration effortlessly.

Easily the weirdest of the color-correction filters is the "FL-D," meant for use with daylight-balanced film in fluorescent lighting conditions. That in itself isn't weird. The weird part is that I see dozens of these in the hands of photographers who buy digital camera "kits", which usually include a cheap tripod, maybe some cleaning cloths, and, for some reason, this filter, which is completely useless and obsolete in the digital age.
Easily the weirdest of the color-correction filters is the “FL-D,” meant for use with daylight-balanced film in fluorescent lighting conditions. That in itself isn’t weird. The weird part is that I see dozens of these in the hands of photographers who buy digital camera “kits”, which usually include a cheap tripod, maybe some cleaning cloths, and, for some reason, this filter, which is completely useless and obsolete in the digital age.