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Color filter recommandations for MM

I going to get a yellow orange 46mm filters. New world for me. Are there things to know about strength of filters, etc? I usually get B+W filters, any thoughts are appreciated. best.....Peter
 
V

Vivek

Guest
I going to get a yellow orange 46mm filters. New world for me. Are there things to know about strength of filters, etc? I usually get B+W filters, any thoughts are appreciated. best.....Peter
It is quite simple- Look through the filter with your eyes and whatever effect (contrast) you see is what will happen to the images.

Yellow- different strengths are useful depending on the light and also the lens used (this where the quick eye check fails miserably).

Orange- brighter skin tones (everything else also look bright).

Red- To get dark skies when in it is blue.

Infrared- Totally useless for the MM. VERY little near IR gets registered.

UV bandpass- Very limited application (also with a few specific lenses).

UV/IR cut filter general purpose and useful to have on any lens as "protection" as well. Improves contrast, generally. I use Rodenstock UV/IR filters. These are stronger than the Leica versions.

Last but not the least- A polarizer is also very useful!
 

robsteve

Subscriber
Peter:

I have a full set of filters from when I shot B&W film with my M lenses. I took a quick look and couldn't find them but I think I had 39mm, 46mm, 52mm,60mm, in orange, red, yellow and maybe green. Email me if you need any and I will take a better look.

I have a new Rodenstock E55 UV-IR that I got to try when the M8 came out, but settled on B+W and Leica UV-IR filters, with the Leic preferred on the wides.
 
It depends on what you want to get from the camera. Erwin Puts suggests a yellow/green or green filter will cause more differentiation between the various colour patches on a macbeth chart, but that may not be the look you want. To reduce highlights, a lot of people seem to be having good fortune with simple yellow filters. This should be more noticeable with large reflective surfaces, reflecting the sky. Moving towards orange should reduce haze somewhat on sunny days too, but how far towards red you go depends on the spectral response of the MM. This is of course great if you want nice sharp images in the distance, but bad if you want to retain aerial perspective, it will mask it.

Get a cheap set of acrylic cokin style filters to test it out holding in typical scenarios, then buy the specific filters you need!
 

photomeme

New member
Consider the cost of your lenses.

A filter kit spanning the spectrum is a pittance these days. You can find a boatload of cheap filters from noteworthy brands on ebay and amazon.

Truth be told, there are interesting uses for almost any color filter along the spectrum. In the digital age, trial and error is king.

Not only is the MM a stop faster at base ISO, but the lack of a bayer filter means no (horrible pattern) color noise, only luminance noise -- another attribute that drives way up usable ISO. Even after a significant filter factor, you will come out far ahead of the M9 or even the M CMOS sensor for an equivalent post-processing conversion, and with all your pixels fully engaged.
 
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edwardkaraa

New member
I think the classic filter set should be yellow/red/green. I also used to love what a blue filter did to skin tones, very unnatural but interesting effect.
 

algrove

Well-known member
I would standardize on something like 46mm - or whatever your favorite lens uses.
Agree, as many lenses use 46mm filters, such as 50/1.4, 28/2.0 90/2.8 Elmarit-M, 35 FLE, 24/3.8, 21/3.4, etc.

on the MM, I prefer orange (040 or 041) for landscapes, but very seldom red (090), even though I prefer a lot of contrast. Yellow (022) and yellow/orange are OK. Green (060) is good for older male faces.
 

mmbma

Active member
One fun way to learn filters is to apply color filters in Silvereffex pro to a COLOR image converted to black and white. You could see exact affect of each color filter and decide for yourself
 
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