Filters

Hi
I've just aquired some black & white filters and would like to know of a website or if anyone can give me some information or know of any articles on how to use them.
Richard

Which colour filters to you have?

The most useful with black and white film are:

Yellow - gives correct tonal rendition with panchromatic film.

Green - lightens foliage

Orange - darkens blue skies, brings out clouds, brings out grain in wooden furniture

Red - very strong effects, as orange but much more so. Cuts through haze.

I have a set from Jessops Yellow,orange,green,red,NT2 & cokin gradual blue b2,warm 81c,polorizer.
What effect does the polorizer have when not set.

I have a MZ6 with a 28-90 standard AF lense can i fit close up filters to it.

Half of those are as i listed, and the rest are suitable for colour landscapes. The polariser will bring out cloud detail and suppress reflections in glass and water. The graduated ones will enable correct exposure of the foreground without burning out the sky. The 81C will warm up your pictures to a golden glow - lovely!

Hope that helps, but any book on basic photography should give you all the information you need. A library could be the answer.

I have a 58 mm adapter which from what i understand is used for cokin A series filters can the same adapter be used with P series and are all Cokin filters the same size. which is best Cokin type or Hoya type filter fitting. Can i fit a set of close filters to my 28-90 AF Pentax lense. Also if i give my e-mail address can anyone give me a list of recommended filters to have as a set.
Richard

That's a lot of questions! There is actually a very useful booklet that explains all the Cokin filters very well. It is often included with Cokin adapters so that you get off to a good start. Perhaps eBay could be a place to find one.

The A series is the original, the P series are larger to make them useable on medium format lenses.

Personally, I prefer to use screw-in filters, but I'm not talking about all the special effect ones, just the black and white filters already mentioned, and perhaps the 81A (Cloudy) filter that warms up the image. With digital, I don't use filters but apply all the effects in Photoshop as required.

You can fit close-up filters to the front of your 28-90mm zoom, and although critical sharpness may suffer results can be very good when small apertures are used. f11 or f16 might be a good choice.

As regards recomended filters, that depends on what you want to achieve. I think it is a personal choice.