tobacco filters

[Thomas Cousin]

hello,i would like some infos about tobacco filters. anyone ever use them ? any precautions using them ?

i shot still tests once with various coloured filters : tobacco, chocolate, straw, sepia ....

when i did these tests, i measured the light loss according to each filter and just compensate everyone of them.

for the tobacco ones i compensate 1 stop 1/3 for the #1 1 stop 2/3 #2 and nearly 3 stops for the #3.

my results were convincing but i was told that i don't need to compensate totally to achieve a more pronounced effect.

i love the warm brownish kind-of-burned tint you get with the tobacco. and i would like to have a good effect with only the #1 or maybe #2.

how will you rate it ? just 1 stop for compensation ? less than that ?

 

thank you

 

thomas

Edited July 5, 2005 by Thomas Cousin

[David Mullen ASC]

Like you said, it all depends on how much of the color you want to retain versus how much scene brightness you want. If I'm shoot color negative, though, I tend to expose correctly for the filter factor -- I can always print it down a little if I need to.

 

I'd only under-compensate like for a sunset scene where I wanted less highlight brightness and more color.

 

It's just like when shooting under colored lighting; you underexpose to retain the color because in real life, your highlights wouldn't be at full exposure anyway, i.e. you're playing your highlights below key. If you exposed at full intensity, then the color looks washed out.