Red Filter and Acros R - input needed.

[Rumle]

Hey.

I'm working on a video about Red FIlters for Black & White still and video actually. And I'd love some input.

The whole thing started with a new found love for Acros R for landscapes and Acros Ye for portraits.. While I started to push it buy forcing a cooler WB or tuning the contrast some digital limitations started to pop up, later I tried to explore the difference between shooting sim and FLOG and trying to remove some color channels in edit.. and it it was clear there are some limitations to the digital method and I have shot a bit of "real" Red Filters lately for video and found that interesting.

Here is a demo reel of some of my footage... it's really just an unsorted mix of AcrosR, log, and Acros with a real filter.







So I'd love to know if any one uses red filters for digital, why what who where.. what's your experience?

Have you tried to simulate this look in EDIT, still or in Davinci Resolve. I'd some to hear about technic used, I was a bit unsuccessful in Resolve.

Watching my video above, do you have any questions that could be fun to explore?

Anything really

 

[Morris0]

I'm not a video shooter yet I like to use Acros R when converting to B&W. If I don't find the look I want from the film sims, I go into Photoshop and use the Channel Mixer and produce a custom mix of the red, green and blue channels. Clicking on each channel individually I can see what each looks like and this helps me chose the mix as I see what pops or fades in each channel.

Morris

 

[Rumle]

Thanks for contributing

 

[Truman Prevatt]

In the early days of the F64 movement of Adams, Archer, Weston, White, etc., panchromatic film was not truly panchromatic. The coatings of the time were not sufficient to produce a film with a flat spectral response and eliminated UV response. To get much other than white skies filters had to be used. Adams started the trend of using a red filter to balance the frequency response. The red was over kill and orange would have flatten it. However, Adams was attracted to the dark skies that became a trade mark of his work.

Most of the F64 followed suite. Today's digital sensors don't suffer the same issue. With my Q2M, the spectral rendering was perfectly flat and skies were not rendered overly bright. However, for daylight outdoors, I normally had a light orange filter on my Q2M which I would take off for street.

Color filters for B&W can produce some unwanted results, the K8(yellow) will lighten foliage which can be an issue. I preferred the 12 (minus blue) to the K8 or better yet the light orange on skin tones.

The question I would have is how does filtering the light interact with the algorithms within a CFA camera. White balance would have to be set to something other than auto. How does it interact with matrix metering? Would center weighted average be better? With my Q2M there was no CFA and the metering was did not use any color information at all.

It is always interesting to experiment to push the envelope. Your video reminds me of the film Noir style that was prevalent in the movies in the 1940's and 1950's.

Keep playing and have some fun.

 

[Rumle]

In the early days of the F64 movement of Adams, Archer, Weston, White, etc., panchromatic film was not truly panchromatic. The coatings of the time were not sufficient to produce a film with a flat spectral response and eliminated UV response. To get much other than white skies filters had to be used. Adams started the trend of using a red filter to balance the frequency response. The red was over kill and orange would have flatten it. However, Adams was attracted to the dark skies that became a trade mark of his work.

Most of the F64 followed suite. Today's digital sensors don't suffer the same issue. With my Q2M, the spectral rendering was perfectly flat and skies were not rendered overly bright. However, for daylight outdoors, I normally had a light orange filter on my Q2M which I would take off for street.

Color filters for B&W can produce some unwanted results, the K8(yellow) will lighten foliage which can be an issue. I preferred the 12 (minus blue) to the K8 or better yet the light orange on skin tones.

The question I would have is how does filtering the light interact with the algorithms within a CFA camera. White balance would have to be set to something other than auto. How does it interact with matrix metering? Would center weighted average be better? With my Q2M there was no CFA and the metering was did not use any color information at all.

It is always interesting to experiment to push the envelope. Your video reminds me of the film Noir style that was prevalent in the movies in the 1940's and 1950's.

Keep playing and have some fun.

Thanks a lot. Some very useful stuff. Actually i just had a film from around 1940 developed and the marking was making some confusion as it was pan-cromatic.. turned out it has two exposures from my grandmothers house..

I'll try and dig in to your question and see if there is anything to explore

 

[Rumle]

Sorry..

It was this old thing i was talking about. A 116 film, slightly larger than 120 it developed with no problem, i mean it fit in the developer machine.

Verichrome Pan 116









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Rumle T. Skafte (@[email protected])

22 Posts, 44 Following, 54 Followers · Im a Danish photographer with theatre as my main field of work.Also find me here:https://www.youtube.com/@RumleSkafte

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Rumle Skafte

I’m a photojournalist specializing in theatre photography. In 2025, I’m revisiting all of my old camera gear—digital, analog, and lenses—to see what still works, what needs repair, and what might need replacing. I spend anywhere from a week to a month with each camera or lens. Along the way, I...

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