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#1
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African American skin tones + filters
Hello, Im looking for an idea of what colour filter is the best filter to
use for african americans for black and white photography. Thank you in advance, Brian -- ===== Homepage: www.astrobri.com Location: Niagara Falls USA geographic Longitude = 79W Geographic Latitude = 43N Corrected Magnetic Latitude = 53N |
#2
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African American skin tones + filters
a yellow filter will limit some of the blue bias that is typical in film. a lot of photogs used to use it when shooting b&w but black skin doesn't need filtering or exposure alterations, it just needs good lighting. If you are experiencing problems with black skin tones, that is a symptom of over all problems with your lighting and exposure. Black skin reveals bad lighting and bad exposure much more readily than white skin. Hello, Im looking for an idea of what colour filter is the best filter to use for african americans for black and white photography. |
#3
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African American skin tones + filters
I second what Zeitgeist says. Good lighting is the most important
factor. I have obtained good pictures without filtration. But a thoughtful application of zone principles is required. White skin reflects a lot more light than black skin. Therefore, given the same lighting, you need to open up the aperture [or shutter] a couple stops more than you would photographing a white person to get adequate skin detail. Of course, our language is too limited. Skin tones are not white or black. There is a continuum of skin tonalities from pale cream to blue black. If you tried to catalogue recognizably different shades within the continuum, you would probably get thousands of shades. Therefore, the photographer should keep in mind that consideration of skin tones and lighting and proper exposure is a task to be addressed individually for each person. Lenses and shutters may, with compensation, offer a range of only 10 - 12 solutions for these thousands of shades, but at least it is not a bipolar choice. Francis A. Miniter zeitgeist wrote: a yellow filter will limit some of the blue bias that is typical in film. a lot of photogs used to use it when shooting b&w but black skin doesn't need filtering or exposure alterations, it just needs good lighting. If you are experiencing problems with black skin tones, that is a symptom of over all problems with your lighting and exposure. Black skin reveals bad lighting and bad exposure much more readily than white skin. Hello, Im looking for an idea of what colour filter is the best filter to use for african americans for black and white photography. |
#4
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African American skin tones + filters
"Brian Larmay" wrote in message igy.com...
Hello, Im looking for an idea of what colour filter is the best filter to use for african americans for black and white photography. No filter should be used. Skin (all skin) is essentially neutral. The amount of color in skin is rather small. |
#5
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African American skin tones + filters
I second what Zeitgeist says. Good lighting is the most important factor. I have obtained good pictures without filtration. But a thoughtful application of zone principles is required. White skin reflects a lot more light than black skin. Therefore, given the same lighting, you need to open up the aperture [or shutter] a couple stops more than you would photographing a white person to get adequate skin detail. No No No. All that does is screw the highlights up even more. And if you print down enough to get the detail in the blocked up highlights, the shadow side skin tone gets even darker and make the poor subject seem even blacker. 9 out of 10 times, the problem with a portrait image is the highlights, the shadows you see are the problems left behind by the bad highlights, you won't have shadows unless you have highlights, light gives you hightlights not shadows. what are you going to do if the black subject you are openning up two stops for wears a white shirt? or poses with a white spouse? all you have to do is open a catalog or even a newspaper ad section and look at the department store ads for purses and leather jackets. humm, did they open up two stops to show detail in those black leather shoes? Is the pale white model blown out to show detail, lots of detail, in that black leather jacket, man you can see the stitches around the pocket flap. I don' think white skin reflects more light than black, there is more apparent separation between the spectral highlight and the midtone highlight, the amount of spectral is probably the same between blacks and whites, you just see it more. That's why I say that black skin reveals bad lighting more. If you can do a good portrait of a black subject you can photograph anybody with that same lighting. You can photograph someone with coke bottle glasses and not have blotchy white spots hiding the eyes, that's the other obvious symptom of specular highlight problems. Of course, our language is too limited. Skin tones are not white or black. There is a continuum of skin tonalities from pale cream to blue black. If you tried to catalogue recognizably different shades within the continuum, you would probably get thousands of shades. Therefore, the photographer should keep in mind that consideration of skin tones and lighting and proper exposure is a task to be addressed individually for each person. Lenses and shutters may, with compensation, offer a range of only 10 - 12 solutions for these thousands of shades, but at least it is not a bipolar choice. Francis A. Miniter zeitgeist wrote: a yellow filter will limit some of the blue bias that is typical in film. a lot of photogs used to use it when shooting b&w but black skin doesn't need filtering or exposure alterations, it just needs good lighting. If you are experiencing problems with black skin tones, that is a symptom of over all problems with your lighting and exposure. Black skin reveals bad lighting and bad exposure much more readily than white skin. Hello, Im looking for an idea of what colour filter is the best filter to use for african americans for black and white photography. |
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