Filters - Tools

Day For Night Harrison has now designed, and is also introducing this year, a new filter for the sole purpose of creating a natural day for night effect. This filter provides the best solution to date, for it achieves a natural looking result by retaining the advantages without the problems of other methods of achieving this effect. How would you make daylight look like night? How could you achieve this effect, and have the subject matter look natural? Here are familiar questions that have been asked repeatedly time and again in the industry for a number of years; and for the most part, they have not been either fully understood or properly answered. The problem is simply as stated: The photographer wants to shoot a scene during daylight hours, and have the finished results look as though they were shot at night. The usual method is to go blue and underexpose: Using daylight film a deep blue filter (an 80-B is recommended) may be used together with underexposure. Using indoor film, as is customary in the movies, it may be sufficient to merely shoot without the 85B filter (85 in the case of photoflood) and underexpose. However, the result of using this method is unnatural in the following respects: First the color produced is actually not a blue but cyanish: This, of course, affects skin tones adversely if there should be a person in the scene; Second, the definition is too sharp and crisp to be appropriate to an actual nighttime scene. It should be remembered that a day for night shot must give the impression of there being some type of light source, whether this be street light, candlelight, fire, house or car lights - something has to provide illumination or you would have no picture at all … And therefore it is necessary for a person's skin to look normal. Harrison took a new approach to the problem by analyzing the relationship between senders and receivers. As a result the new Day for Night filter will: Produce a natural nighttime blue color, in which individual skin tones will be preserved; and, the image sharpness controlled. And how are these effects achieved? First the effect filter is reddish-blue in color. This holds a little red in the skin tones which retaining the natural blue of the night. This color factor will pull the exposure down by two stops. Secondly, incorporated into these filters, particularly into numbers two and three, is a low contrast factor, which cuts the sharpness and crispness of image… Thus, the total desirable effect is achieved, without the usual defects. It should be remembered that hot skies could kill a Day for Night effect: And that it may be necessary to PRE-CONTROL the sky area by using a graduate or neutral blended ration attenuator in combination with the Day or Night filters which this condition is encountered. Because you may be confronted with a variety of different contrast levels it is recommended that you have the full set. These will equip you for any situation you are likely to run into. There are only three: Number one is color only; Number two is color with a little lowering of contrast to take off the sharp edges only; Whereas number three is color plus more low contrast, and is capable of softening edges, which are rather crisp and sharp. These filters are available in all sizes, and may be purchased singly is desired. Diopters If you define 'filter' as being anything you add to a light path to alter the character of the image, diopters are filters. However, diopters are also lenses in their own right. They have a focal length, and they must transmit light without changing its quality characteristics. Diopters are made from lens elements which must be every bit as good as your primary lens or images will be degraded. In fact, since they are lenses used to enlarge image detail, diopters need to be even better than most primary lenses. Diopters shorten the close-focusing distance of normal fixed focal length or zoom lenses. This allows the camera to focus closer to the subject and achieve a larger size image while bringing out the sharpest details in even the tiniest subjects. LL-D Allows use of tungsten film in daylight without exposure compensation, as for low light situations. For use with negative film for motion picture photography in conjunction with an optical printer. Clear Clear filters are used to protect the expensive front elements of lenses and other filters. UV, Haze UV (ultraviolet) blocking filters effectively reduces or eliminates photographic haze in areas where the atmospheric conditions contain a heavy concentration of dust particles, water droplets, and pollution. Such conditions - often found in mountainous or coastal regions, and industrial areas - scatter light and produce a bluish cast that causes film to render a lack of color, contrast and overall image quality. By filtering out ultraviolet light, the UV filter blocks the blue cast, penetrates haze and permits the film to capture vivid colors and sharper detail.

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